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I&B Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told the Rajya Sabha last week that WhatsApp and its parent company Meta have not informed the government about any plans to shut down their services in India.

The I&B minister was responding to questions raised by Congress member Vivek Tankha on whether the messaging app was planning to shut down its services in India due to the government's directive on sharing user details.

“The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has shared that neither WhatsApp nor Meta has informed the government about any such plan,” Vaishnav told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.

Vaishnaw said the Central government issues directions under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 to prevent incitement to any cognizable offence relating to the above in relation to information on computer resource in the interest of sovereignty or integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States or public order.

Earlier this year, WhatsApp told the Delhi High Court that it would stop operating in India if the government forced it to break the encryption of messages.

WhatsApp and its parent company Meta had challenged the newly amended IT rules, saying they violate the right to privacy and are unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, the Meta-owned company has revealed its US figures for the WhatsApp service for the first time. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that WhatsApp has reached 100 million users in the US.

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