India joins ‘Five-Eyes’ in seeking access to WhatsApp, other encrypted apps

In a very significant move, the Indian government, along with Japan and the 'Five Eyes' intelligence alliance, have called on tech giants to provide 'solutions' so that end-to-end encrypted communications including WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Facebook Messenger etc can be accessed, reports senior journalist Sanjib Kr Baruah.

New Delhi: In a very significant move with deep ramifications both on global cybersecurity collaborations and individual privacy, India has joined the secretive spying and information-sharing network called ‘Five-Eyes’ and Japan in asking giant technology companies to provide solutions so that end-to-end encrypted communications including WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Facebook Messenger etc can be accessed.

Set up in 1941, ‘Five Eyes’ is an exclusive club of spy rings of five governments—Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and US—that collaborate to intercept information within other countries to be used for diplomatic, security, military and economic benefits and gains.

Besides unnamed representatives from India and Japan, the signatories issuing the call on Saturday to tech companies included Priti Patel, UK secretary of state for home, William P. Barr, US attorney-general, Peter Dutton, Australian home minister, Andrew Little, New Zealand’s security and intelligence minister and Bill Blair, Canada’s minister for public safety.

The joint statement said: “While this statement focuses on the challenges posed by end-to-end encryption, that commitment applies across the range of encrypted services available, including device encryption, custom encrypted applications and encryption across integrated platforms.”

“While encryption is vital and privacy and cybersecurity must be protected, that should not come at the expense of wholly precluding law enforcement, and the tech industry itself, from being able to act against the most serious illegal content and activity online,” the statement added.

Possibly amounting to asking for “backdoor” access to encrypted communications programmes, the signatories asked the tech companies to “embed the safety of the public in system designs”, providing access to law enforcement “in a readable and usable format”.

While ‘Five-Eyes’ had issued similar calls in the past two years, the effort could not take off in the face of privacy concerns and opposition by tech companies. Saturday’s statement is the alliance's latest effort to get tech companies to agree to encryption backdoors. What is significant is India and Japan’s inclusion.

With more than 400 million users, India is one of the biggest WhatsApp user-bases of its about 2.7 billion users worldwide.

India’s active collaboration with the ‘Five Eyes’ network is significant in the backdrop of its escalating military tension with China that has shown no signs of abating even as more than 1,00,000 troops of both the Asian giants have been deployed in a confrontational situation across the frontier.

In 2008, India accepted the invitation to be part of a secret multilateral spy network called the SIGINT Seniors Pacific (SSPAC) which comprises South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and the ‘Five Eyes’.

In India, the agencies involved with the SSPAC are Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), National Technical Reconnaissance Organisation (NTRO) and the Aviation Research Centre (ARC).

On September 23, 2020, the US House Armed Services Committee in its “Future of Defense Task Force Report 2020” had strongly recommended closer and robust ties among the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence partners and also with other countries including India and Japan in order to counter China.

Japan has already expressed its keenness to be part of the ‘Five Eyes’ network.

In December 2019, US Congressman Adam Schiff, who chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in a report had sought expanding the ‘Five Eyes’ by including India, Japan and South Korea so as to counter an increasingly powerful China.