Govt To Examine Claim Of WhatsApp Accessing Mic In Background: MoS IT

Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar has said that the government will examine WhatsApp allegedly accessing android devices' microphone, even when not in active use.

"This is an unacceptable breach and violation of Privacy," the minister said in response to a tweet by a Twitter Engineer, alleging that WhatsApp was accessing microphone in the background while he was asleep.

"We will be examinig this immdtly and will act on any violation of privacy even as new Digital Personal Data protection bill (DPDP) is being readied," the minister tweeted on Wednesday (10 May).

Meanwhile, WhatsApp has issued a statement in which it dismissed the claim by the Twitter engineer.

"Over the last 24 hours we’ve been in touch with a Twitter engineer who posted an issue with his Pixel phone and WhatsApp," the social messaging app said.

"We believe this is a bug on Android that mis-attributes information in their Privacy Dashboard and have asked Google to investigate and remediate," it added.

WhatsApp further said that users have full control over their microphone settings.

"Once granted permission, WhatsApp only accesses the mic when a user is making a call or recording a voice note or video - and even then, these communications are protected by end-to-end encryption so WhatsApp cannot hear them," it said.