IT Act well-equipped to deal with hacking, spyware: Ravi Shankar Prasad

The government on Wednesday told Lok Sabha that it is committed to protecting the fundamental rights of citizens, including the right to privacy, and that there are adequate provisions in the Information Technology (IT) Act to deal with hacking and spyware.

The government is also working on the Personal Data Protection Bill to safeguard privacy of citizens, and it is proposed to table it in Parliament, Minister of Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

The government has taken note of the fact that a spyware/malware affected some WhatsApp users. According to WhatsApp, this spyware was developed by an Israel-based company NSO Group and that it had developed and used Pegasus spyware to attempt to reach mobile phones of a possible number of 1,400 users globally. The users include 121 people from India, Prasad said.