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The government is not considering penalising social media or messaging apps executives for traceability of messages under the proposed changes to intermediary rules, a government official told Business Standard.

A financial daily reported on Saturday that penalties and jail terms for executives were being considered, especially on traceability and user consent before being added to groups.

"We have released the intermediary rules about three months ago, on which we have received comments and counter comments. There has been nothing further on those from our side, people are free to interpret it in their own way," said an official of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

The Ministry had in December, proposed changes to Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and asked for public comments on the draft amendments that seek to regulate a set of companies that qualify as intermediaries. This includes a wide range of companies- Facebook, Twitter, Google, WhatsApp, Sharechat, Amazon Web Services and so on.

The proposed amendments by MeitY say that intermediaries will have to provide information requested by a lawful order by a government or authorised agency within 72 hours of communication of receiving the request. "The intermediary shall enable tracing out of such originator of information on its platform as may be required by government agencies who are legally authorised," the rules have proposed.

These changes do not mention arrests or jail terms for company executives for not following the rules.

While it is easier to trace the origin of messages on a platform such as Twitter or Facebook, which are more public and open, WhatsApp is a messaging platform and uses end-to-end encryption, which means even company executives cannot look at the contents of the messages being exchanged between people or groups on the platform.

WhatsApp has earlier called the proposed changes "overbroad" and undermining privacy of people using the messaging service.

The proposed changes in Section 79 attempt to fix in part, the issue of fake news that gets circulated on certain platforms. In India the past year, several instances of “fake news” or spread of misinformation led to several people being killed by lynch mobs, who were incited by rumours spread on WhatsApp.

India is WhatsApp’s largest market, with over 200 million users out of the 1.5 billion it has worldwide.

“People rely on WhatsApp for all kinds of sensitive conversations, including with their doctors, banks and families. The police also use WhatsApp to discuss investigations and report crimes. Attributing messages on WhatsApp would undermine end-to-end encryption and the private nature of WhatsApp creating the potential for serious misuse. Our focus is on improving WhatsApp and working closer with others in society to help keep people safe,” a WhatsApp spokesperson told Business Standard in an email response.