Supreme Court asks govt to regulate social media, terms tech 'dangerous'

Brushing aside the objections of global social media giants to reveal end-to-end encrypted messages shared on their platforms to police and law enforcement agencies, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said that it's high time these companies cooperate under a legal regime as technology is becoming "dangerous" by the day. Now worried about what the companies had to say, the court said it will act in the interest of country's sovereignty, security and crime prevention and urged the Centre to come up with a timeframe to bring out these guidelines by October 22.

The strong words from the court came as it was examining the issue arising from a transfer petition by social media giants — Facebook and WhatsApp for transferring cases pending with the Madras, Bombay and Madhya Pradesh HCs to the apex court. The Madras HC had directed these companies to cooperate with the state police in detection of crime by providing information about the originator of messages on WhatsApp with relation to uploading pornographic, sexually violent and terror content.

Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Mukul Rohatgi, who appeared for these companies, claimed that without any law, the HC could not direct them to part with information. Also, they argued that this raises issues of privacy as messages shared are end-to-end encrypted.

A-G KK Venugopal, who represented Tamil Nadu government, said, "They may leave the country as they have no business to operate if they do not wish to cooperate with us." The bench sided with the concern of the A-G and said, "Why should we worry about the international issues, we should be worried about our country first."

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Centre, informed the court that the process of consultations is on and a timeframe cannot be specified. But the bench said that it is for the government and not courts to frame a policy along with safeguards to protect individual privacy. One of the judges went on to share his experience about the dark net and how he was close to purchasing two AK-47s. "I'm planning to give up my smartphone as it's dangerous the way technology is going." The court also wondered how an individual's reputation is torn to shreds on the social media with no recourse available.