Brazil judge briefly blocks WhatsApp over criminal case
SAO PAULO A Brazilian judge briefly blocked Facebook Inc's WhatsApp messaging service on Tuesday for failing to cooperate in a criminal investigation, before the nation's top court overturned the measure in the third such incident since December.Federal Supreme Court President Ricardo Lewandowski said in a decision that it seemed "scarcely reasonable or proportional" for a judge in Rio de Janeiro state to have ordered the indefinite suspension of the messaging app until it revealed encrypted messages pertaining to a confidential case.Still, the criminal judge left some 100 million Brazilian users without access to the messaging app for hours on Tuesday afternoon, showing the vast and unpredictable discretionary power of Brazil's lower courts.
In Brazil and Elsewhere, WhatsApp Feels the Pressures of Encryption
It's difficult to overstate the influence of WhatsApp in Brazil.The messaging app, which was essential for nearly half of all smartphone users in Brazil according to a June 2016 report by Mobile Time and Opinion Box, has seen its fair share of turmoil in the country, however: A Brazilian judge recently ordered a shutdown of the app for 72 hours as a result of WhatsApp's refusal to cooperate with a subpoena in a criminal case.But WhatsApp claims that, given the encryption of their app, there would be no data to turn over.
WhatsApp officially un-banned in Brazil after third block in eight months
Brazil's federal supreme court has suspended a judge's ruling ordering mobile phone companies to indefinitely block access to Facebook's WhatsApp – the third such decision against the popular phone messaging app in eight months.The Rio de Janeiro judge Daniela Barbosa ruled that access to the application should be blocked immediately because WhatsApp's owner, Facebook, had shown "total disrespect for Brazilian laws".Her decision said Facebook was repeatedly asked to intercept messages sent through the service to help in a criminal investigation in the city of Caxias, outside Rio.
Comments
Post a Comment