After username row, MeitY eyes uniform standards for messaging apps

THe ministry of electronics and info technology (Meity) is workings on mutual standards for electronic messaging platforms operating in bharat, as it moves to formally oppose WhatsApp’s proposed username feature over concerns that it could fuel impersonation, online fraud and digital arrest scams while making law enforcement investigations more difficult, a government official familiar with the matter told HT.“We are not in favour of WhatsApp introducing this feature. Given its massive user base in India, usernames could make impersonation, digital arrest scams, online fraud and even investigations by law enforcement more difficult,” the official said. WhatsApp has more than three billion users worldwide, and India is among its largest markets.The push for a common standard amounts to an attempt to close a newly discovered regulatory gap: right now, the ministry has stopped one platform’s feature while rivals offer the same thing, without a rule that explicitly permits or denies such action“We are also looking at bringing in common standards for messaging platforms so there is legal backing for such decisions. It cannot be that we stop one platform from rolling out a feature while allowing others to continue offering the same thing. The rules have to be uniform for everyone. We will discuss this with all messaging platforms before taking a final decision,” the official said.The development comes a day after WhatsApp and Telegram submitted their responses to Meity’s notices, purportedly explaining the safeguards built into their username features. An official who asked not to be named said the government is examining both responses but did not give details of the responses.Signal, which received a notice alongside Telegram on July 3, is yet to reply.Sridhar Vembu, founder of Zoho, which owns messaging app Arattai, said in a July 2 post on X that the company would disable the messaging app’s username-based account feature “to comply with the regulatory change.”Meta first opened username reservations on WhatsApp in a blog post on June 29, ahead of a global rollout planned for the end of the year, framing the feature as a privacy tool that lets users connect without sharing a phone number.WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal and Arattai operate in India as intermediaries under the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which require them to exercise due diligence, assist law enforcement and comply with lawful government orders.Neither law sets out common rules on what features a messaging platform can or cannot offer — a gap officials say the ministry is now looking to close.The ministry’s growing scrutiny has drawn pushback from digital rights advocates and some legal experts, who have questioned whether the IT Act and its rules give Meity the authority to regulate how messaging services are designed.Describing it as a ‘license raj for software features,’ the Internet Freedom Foundation said in a blog, “MeitY does not name any provision that lets it approve a product feature before release or order one withdrawn, because there is none, and the provisions it does cite do not supply that power.”Dhruv Garg, partner at policy advisory Indian Governance and Policy Project (IGAP), believes that while uniform standards are acceptable, they shouldn’t force messaging platforms to fundamentally redesign their products. “If MeitY intends to introduce standards for messaging intermediaries, it most likely may be framed as a due diligence measure under the Intermediary Guidelines. While establishing standardised obligations for messaging platforms is reasonable, these compliance metrics must never alter their core architecture or compromise their inherent nature as neutral, third-party conduits for information,” saidResponding to the government’s scrutiny and to HT’s earlier queries, a Meta spokesperson had said the company built several safeguards against impersonation and fraud into the feature. These include reserving usernames tied to existing Facebook and Instagram accounts, protecting the usernames of public figures, government entities and verified Meta accounts, using automated systems to detect impersonation, capping how many new people an account can be contacted by through a username, limiting how often a username can be changed, and banning accounts or revoking usernames where abuse is found.The company added that when a user receives a first message from outside their contacts, WhatsApp will show whether the sender’s account is new, whether the two have groups in common, and whether the sender is based in another country — giving the recipient the option to trust, block or report before responding.