WhatsApp defends its security features amid row over leaked chats in B'wood drugs case

Reports of NCB (Narcotics Control Bureau) cloning the mobile phones of Rhea Chakraborty and others which gave them access to their WhatsApp chats has once again resulted in multiple speculations and raised questions regarding the security, privacy settings and accessibility of WhatsApp's encrypted messages. As per NCB, it acquired the chats dating back to 2017, from Sushant Singh Rajput's former talent manager Jaya Shah's cellphone. Following this, actors Rakul Preet Singh, Sara Ali Khan and Shraddha Kapoor have been summoned by the NCB on Friday in Bollywood drugs case. 

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'End-to-end encryption ensures messages' privacy': WhatsApp

While dismissing the speculations, WhatsApp spokesperson said that it takes all the measures to protect the privacy of its users. All the messages are end-to-end encrypted, ensuring authorised access to the messages. This means that apart from the sender and the receiver, nobody else can have access to these messages. The spokesperson added that not even WhatsApp has access to these messages. People only use their phone number to sign up on WhatsApp, due to which the application does not have access to the message content on the cellphone. 

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Many people assume that NCB accessed the chats from Jaya shah's mobile via 'mobile phone cloning technique' from 2005. In this technique, a cloned phone can anytime access non-encrypted Whatsapp back-up chats from Google Drive, iCloud, or wherever they are stored. Although accessing messages like this is illegal for people, but the authorities like NCB can use a forensic method to legally access the data stored on mobile phones. 

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Top stars summoned by NCB

Apart from Deepika Padukone, Shraddha Kapoor, Sara Ali Khan and Rakul Preet Singh have also been summoned by the NCB for questioning. Shruti Modi and Simone Khambata, have also been summoned by the Narcotics Control Bureau on Wednesday in the ongoing Bollywood-drug probe. Rakul and Simone have been summoned for September 24.

There are at least two angles running in tandem in terms of the NCB's investigation into the link between Bollywood and drugs - regarding the Sushant Singh Rajput-Rhea Chakraborty and associated angle and regarding Manjinder Singh Sirsa's complaint about a 2019 Bollywood party video that had emerged earlier in which a lot of Bollywood stars were present.

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(With agency inputs; Image: PTI)