WhatsApp snooping: FB India chief appears before parliamentary panel

Ankhi Das, Public Policy Director Facebook India, South and Central Asia, on Friday submitted to a parliamentary panel probing the WhatsApp snooping scandal that the social media platform has an end-to-end encryption and it renders any effort to access the communication between its two users "unlikely from its end", sources said.

The parliamentary standing committee on Information Technology headed by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday called the cyber security experts to hear their views on the issue of citizens data security and privacy.

As per the notice of the meeting, the panel had also called non-official witnesses of the WhatsApp snooping row, including BJP's former organisational secretary Govindacharya, who was represented by his lawyer in the meeting.

Representatives of WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, and the officials of Telecom and Union Home Ministry and Delhi chief secretary were also called by the panel, the notice read.

WhatsApp was represented by Das, who told the panel that it is unlikely to breach the end-to-end encryption of the social media platform from its end, sources said. Read More