The Supreme Court on Friday said that the government wants to tap the WhatsApp messages of citizens and sought its response within two weeks over the same. Taking a strong note of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s decision to set up a social media hub for monitoring online data, the top court observed that it will be ‘like creating a surveillance state’.
On a plea by Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislator Mahua Moitra, a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud had issued the notice to the Centre and had sought Attorney General KK Venugopal’s assistance in the matter.
“The government wants to tap citizens’ WhatsApp messages. It will be like creating a surveillance state,” the bench said.
Senior advocate AM Singhvi, appearing for Moitra, had said that the government has issued the request for proposal and the tender will be opened on August 20.
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“They want to monitor social media content with the help of this social media hub,” Singhvi said.
Recently, the Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Limited (BECIL), a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) under the ministry, had floated a tender to supply a software for the project. “A technology platform is needed to collect digital media chatter from all core social media platforms as well as digital platforms such as news, blogs… In a single system providing real-time insights, metrics and other valuable data,” the tender document said.
“The platform may be used to disseminate content and hence, should support publishing features,” the document says, adding the platform needs to power a real-time New Media Command Room,” the tender document said
It should also help the ministry to understand the impact of various social media campaigns conducted on Centre-run schemes, it says.
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