WhatsApp continues to face troubles down in Brazil. It has been banned and unbanned by the judiciary several times already but today’s decision is a bit different. After tireless efforts by the country’s law enforcement agencies, a Brazilian judge has ordered that WhatsApp be banned in the country indefinitely. This order followed the temporary bans that were previously overturned by higher courts.
The order directs Brazil’s fire wireless networks to not carry any data for WhatsApp. Carriers found to be not complying with this order will be fined 50,000 real daily.
Today’s order is different from previous orders because it does not have a determined expiration date. WhatsApp will effectively remain banned in Brazil until the Facebook-owned company complies with an already issued request for WhatsApp messages related to an investigation.
WhatsApp lawyers argue that the company does not have access to those messages and is therefore unable to comply with the request. This is because WhatsApp conversations are secured using end-to-end encryption which means the company can’t access users’ messages even if it were forced to do so.
A spokesperson for WhatsApp says that the company hopes that this block will be lifted as soon as possible, reiterating the company’s stance that it cannot share information that it doesn’t have access to.
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