India expects tech cos will not use encryption as ‘excuse’, official says

India expects that technology companies will not use encryption as an excuse to hold up investigations and will play their part in bringing criminals to justice, the top government official in India’s technology ministry said on Tuesday.

India earlier this year introduced rules that require private messaging apps such as WhatsApp to divulge the originator of disinformation when asked, a move that the Facebook-owned company says will force it to break end-to-end encryption.

“Encryption is a welcome thing most of the time… (but) when it is necessary to come to the assistance of law enforcement agencies to bring perpetrators of wrongdoing to justice then we expect that encryption will not be held up as a silly excuse to deny that,”