Thiruvananthapuram: The Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Court has issued a Meta-owned WhatsApp for refusing to share information with in a defamation case. This is the first time in the country that a court has issued such a notice to the messenger platform.
The notice was sent to the company's country head.  

The court had asked the company to respond to defamation case filed by a woman from Kilimanoor in Thiruvananthapuram district. The cyber police here at first received a complaint from the alleging that indecent posts about her were circulating on WhatsApp. She had sought necessary actions against the person circulating them.  

Following this, the police asked the company for details of the person who initially posted the indecent messages. But WhatsApp refused to provide the information claiming its end-to-end encryption policy.

Subsequently, citing the recent amendments in IT laws, police sent a fresh notice to the country head of WhatsApp in India, with an order from the additional chief judicial magistrate. As per this notice, the WhatsApp officials could even face an arrest if they fail to share the information sought by the police.

Financial frauds through Telegram

Meanwhile, the Kerala Police recently sent a report to the Union Home Ministry pointing out that the maximum number of financial frauds were taking place through the Telegram messenger application. The police also accused the appt of not sharing details of scamsters despite multiple requests.

“Other states also have complained to the Union Home Ministry against Telegram and we have learnt that the centre will soon initiate a proper action,” said an officer of the Kerala cyber police.

Similarly, many people in Kerala have lost money to crypto exchange frauds. For instance, a man in Kollam was cheated of Rs 1 crore in an online scam of which Rs 30 lakh was lost to the crypto exchange Binance. Even though police ordered Binance to return the money, there was no response and officials have conveyed the matter to the Centre.

The central government had recently banned nine foreign crypto exchanges, including Binance, KuCoin, Huobi and Kraken, for carrying out money laundering businesses.