‘Notified govt about security issue in May’: WhatsApp on snooping row

New Delhi: On Friday, WhatsApp said that it had notified relevant Indian and international government authorities of the security issue in May, a day the government sought an explanation from the Facebook-owned company.

In its statement, WhatsApp said: “In May we quickly resolved a security issue and notified relevant Indian and international government authorities. Since then we’ve worked to identify targeted users to ask the courts to hold the international spyware firm known as the NSO Group accountable.”

The company also said that it wanted to work with the Indian government to safeguard the privacy of its Indian users.

“We agree with the government of India; it’s critical that together we do all we can to protect users from hackers attempting to weaken security. WhatsApp remains committed to the protection of all user messages through the product we provide,” statement added.

The spokesperson said that the company remains committed to ensuring privacy and end-to-end encryption. WhatsApp has over 1.5 billion users globally, of which India alone accounts for about 400 million.

On Thursday, WhatsApp said Indian citizens, including former Union minister Praful Patel and former Lok Sabha MP Santosh Bharatiya, were among the those globally spied upon by unnamed entities using a spyware called Pegasus, developed by Israel-based NSO Group.

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