Brazil Suspends All WhatsApp Operations

In the latest episode of an ongoing battle between governments and technology companies over the privacy limits to accessing data, a Brazilian judge temporarily suspended WhatsApp for not handing over information relevant to a criminal investigation. The BBC reports that this is the third time in two years that the messaging service has been banned in the country.

While the suspension was quickly overturned by the Brazilian supreme court in a matter of hours, the blackout affected millions of users in the country. According to the BBC, the last suspension was imposed in May, and forced 100 million people to turn to other messaging service alternatives. This time around, a justice on the Brazilian supreme court struck down the ban, arguing that it was disproportionate.

As The Verge reports, the ban did not specifically target WhatsApp. Rather, it prohibited Brazil’s five largest wireless carriers from carrying any data for the messaging service, threatening them with a daily fine of 50,000 reals if they did not comply.

WhatsApp has consistently argued that, due to end-to-end encryption protocols, it does not have access to the information that the government seeks. In effect, the messaging service has locked itself out of the conversations occurring over the app and is arguing that it cannot provide what it does not have.

“Indiscriminate steps like these threaten people’s ability to communicate, to run their businesses, and to live their lives,” a spokesperson for WhatsApp said to The Verge. “As we’ve said in the past, we cannot share information we don’t have access to. We hope to see this block lifted as soon as possible.”

End-to-end encryption, which secures the data sent between two parties, has also been a sticking point in conflicts between law enforcement and tech companies that are accused of withholding information that is crucial to investigations. Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, recently added a similar “secret conversations” feature to its Messenger app.