New Delhi: The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) permitted WhatsApp to go live on UPI, but the move is expected to become a new headache for the law enforcement agencies. Officers have already been complaining about the poor response by the American tech giants in supporting any investigation by providing details pertaining to the case.
Many officers also said that the high volume of digital frauds and calls are done using WhatsApp services. The investigation of such crime hit a roadblock as security agencies have to write to WhatsApp support which has its server outside India and many a time it takes lots of effort to get crucial data.
“It is a task to get information from WhatsApp. They have no nodal office in India or any local servers. For everything we have to write to their support team in the US which many a time is not able to understand the urgency of the matter,” said a senior Delhi Police officer wishing anonymity.
Another IPS officer from Punjab said all the cases of extortion, threatening, bullying, theft, robbery, fake calling etc are happening through WhatsApp. For almost every case we need their help but there is hardly any support.
Security officers claims at the time when it is getting so tough to track communication on WhatsApp then tracking money and customers’’ sensitive data will be another challenge.
WhatsApp can now expand its UPI base in a graded manner starting with a maximum number of registered users at 20 million, NPCI said in a statement late on November 5.
Earlier this month, the matter of data security and safety has already been raised in the Supreme Court through a PIL by CPI Rajya Sabha member Binoy Vishwam. He alleged breach of financial data security of Indians using ‘Unified Payments Interface’ (UPI) services offered by big players like Amazon Pay, GooglePay and challenged permission to WhatsApp to start UPI services.
Appearing for Vishwan, senior advocate Shyam Divan said, “RBI and NPCI have permitted the three members of the big four tech giants – Amazon, Google and Facebook/WhatsApp – to participate in the UPI ecosystem without much scrutiny and inspite of blatant violations of UPI guidelines and RBI regulations.”
There is no clarity yet how American tech giants are going to comply with data privacy, security and supporting law enforcement agencies. But, investigators are apprehensive about mechanism WhatsApp will install to curb rising cases of financial fraud using UPI.