In several cases over the last couple of years, the police have highlighted WhatsApp chats found on phones to explain why they needed to ke...
In several cases over the last couple of years, the police have highlighted WhatsApp chats found on phones to explain why they needed to keep people in custody.
This strategy has been deployed most recently in narcotics cases involving Hindi film actress Rhea Chakraborty and Aryan Khan, the son of film star Shah Rukh Khan. It has previously been used against activist Umar Khalid and others in the Delhi riots case.
Last week, there were reports of the Hyderabad police stopping people in the streets and checking their phones to see if their WhatsApp chats contained conversations about drugs.
However, many legal experts say that this is completely illegal. One researcher has sent the Hyderabad Police a legal notice asking them to stop these “roving and fishing enquiry with no legal basis”.
This has left many ordinary people wondering what the powers of the police are in this regard and whether they can actually conduct such searches of phones.
What has happened?
The legal notice sent by independent data and privacy researcher Srinivas Kodali to the Commissioner of the Hyderabad Police, with the help of a civil rights organisation called the Internet Freedom Foundation, says that the police requires a “judicial warrant” to search phones. Otherwise, the search can only be undertaken “during an investigation...[with] recorded reasons explaining the need...
