Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad A. Bobde on Monday addressed lawyers appearing for the social media/instant messaging giants. He said that Indians had “grave apprehensions” about loss of privacy from Facebook and WhatsApp. The National Informatics Centre has also launched an instant messaging platform, being looked at as an alternative to WhatsApp, Sandes.
Heading a three-judge Bench, CJI Bobde said on Monday that people had grave apprehensions about the loss of privacy, they might be a two or three trillion company, but people value their privacy more. He added that it was their duty to protect people’s privacy. CJI Bodbde further said that people think that if A sends a WhatsApp message to B and B to C, the circuit of messages is revealed to Facebook.
The newly launched app Sandes can be used by people for sharing all kinds of messages, media and documents, much like WhatsApp. Sandes was launched by NIC for government employees when the Coronavirus pandemic hit India as they needed to ensure secure communication.
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As mentioned earlier, the interface of Sandes is much like any other instant-messaging app only. However, the government instant messaging system does not have the option to transfer chat history between two platforms. The chats on Sandes can be backed up to the email of the users.
