Amid the “toolkit” controversy, a couple of days ago the Indian government came up with several new social media regulations, one of which was for apps like WhatsApp to identify the “first originator”. While laying out guidelines on February 26, law and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said that the originator of posts abusing sovereignty, security, relations with other states and rape must be revealed. This as the government wants to track down instigators in cases where social media apps are used to spread “mischief”.

But tracking the origin of messages may require the apps offering privacy to break their end-to-end encryption policy. Encryption is kind of a safety blanket. This means that no one except you and the person you are sending messages to can read your conversations.

Ravi Shankar Prasad said the government didn’t want the content, which was already out in form of tweets or messages. “But who began the mischief? This, they (social media platforms) will have to disclose,” he had said on February 26.

The government, however, has clarified that finding the “first originator” will only be necessary in cases where the penalty is greater than five years. This includes instances where there may be a threat to India’s national sovereignty, the security of the state, public order, and other scenarios laid out under Section 69 of the IT act.

This also implies that there has to be a valid court order. The rules clarify that such an order should not be passed if less intrusive means are effective.

But the question is how far back do you go to assign blame. Platforms like WhatsApp — which run their business on promising users’ privacy with end-to-end encryption — are going to have a tough time dealing with the regulation once it comes into effect after three months. But they have to offer privacy, which is an individual’s fundamental right. However, if these platforms do not adhere to the new IT rules, they will be answerable to the Indian government.

Law experts feel the failure to do so will make these intermediaries liable for any illegal third-party information and may even end their operations.

However, it’s tough to unlock if the encryption is strong enough. According to Apple, creating a backdoor that voids encryption would unlock a new set of security threats for users. In the past, WhatsApp always turned down such requests citing end-to-end encryption. Now, if the platform breaks encryption, it would be violating its own rules and regulations.

However, backing up chats on a cloud storage platform does away with the protection provided by end-to-end encryption and these can be accessed by the intermediary. WhatsApp’s option to back up chats and messages onto the cloud was brought in three years ago.

For users, the bigger question is freedom of speech.

But here’s the catch: Within the new rules, the central government has not specified who will decide if the line has been crossed. In the next three months, it is possible that the guidelines can be tweaked to find a balance between the companies’ rules, users’ privacy and the government’s goal at the end of the day.