It seems that Apple isn’t the only one that is fighting the U.S. government on its stance on encryption as it seems they have been having a standoff with messaging app WhatsApp as well.
According to the New York Times, the Justice Department has been discussing how to proceed in a continuing criminal investigation in which a federal judge had approved a wiretap on the suspect’s phone. The problem, however, seems to be that WhatsApp has been encrypting conversions between users, causing the Justice Department to be unable to read the cleartext of the messages.
While both parties have declined to comment about the issues, as the case itself is officially under seal, an anonymous source states that the case involved has nothing to do with terrorism.
In 2014, WhatsApp implemented end-to-end encryption. This system means that only the recipients would be able to read the messages. Prior to that, the Facebook-owned messaging platform did not boast any form of encryption, meaning that in theory, WhatsApp could comply to a wiretap order.
For now though, it seems that the U.S. government would be keeping a low profile for this particular case. As the battle with Apple goes on, it is entirely possible that this case would then be pushed into the spotlight as well.
Source: The New York Times
