WhatsApp temporary ban in Brazil

Judicial moves to restrict messaging service Whatsapp across Brazil Latin American’s biggest country, for allegedly not  co-operating with police investigations threatens the sectors growth  and  has instilled fears among the public about internet censorship.

They have an estimated 100m users, the Facebook-owned messaging service is officially the most popular app.

Mark Zukerberg, the Facebook founder and chief executive said “ The idea that everyone in Brazil can be denied the freedom to communicate the way they want is very scary in a democracy.”

A Judge in Sergipe state in the north-east, ordered telecom operators to block WhatsApp for 72 hours this month after it refused to share message sent between drug traffickers – a ban that was overturned in higher court 24 hours later.

In March 2016, the same judge imprisoned Facebook’s vice-president for Latin America, Diego Dzodan, for 24 hours for the same reason.

Last December 2015, a judge in Sao Bernardo do Campo, Sao Paulo imposed a 48-hour ban on WhatsApp after it did not comply with judicial rulings to share information in a criminal investigation. WhatsApp has become an invaluable tool in criminal investigation and put the sector at the centre of privacy versus security debate. Under  Brazil’s new internet law “Marco Civil”, which came into effect in 2014, telecoms companies and internet sites are obliged to provide authorities with metadata, information about a who called whom and when but not the content of messages sent on messaging platforms. When WhatsApp refused to divulge the contents of messages sent via its app even if it wanted to, as their new end-to end encryption ensures that messages can be read only by the sender and the recipient.