Facebook's India Public Policy Director Ankhi Das on Friday submitted to a parliamentary panel probing the WhatsApp snooping scandal that the social media platform has an end-to-end encryption and it renders any effort to access the communication between its two users "unlikely from its end", sources said. The parliamentary standing committee on Information Technology headed by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday called the cyber security experts to hear their views on the issue of citizens data security and privacy.

As per the notice of the meeting, the panel had also called non-official witnesses of the WhatsApp snooping row, including BJP''s former organisational secretary Govindacharya, who was represented by his lawyer in the meeting.

Representatives of WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, and the officials of Telecom and Union Home Ministry and Delhi chief secretary were also called by the panel, the notice read.

WhatsApp was represented by Das, public policy director, Facebook India, South and Central Asia, who told the panel that it is unlikely to breach the end-to-end encryption of the social media platform from its end, sources said.

Telecom Secretary Anshu Prakash and officials of the Home Ministry also appeared before the panel.

In a letter to the panel''s members, Tharoor had earlier said that "Cybersecurity is a major issue on our agenda" and "we are definitely going to take this up under that rubric. And we will be seeking clarifications from the government."

In October, Facebook-owned WhatsApp said Indian journalists and human rights activists were among those globally spied upon by unidentified entities, using an Israeli spyware -- Pegasus.

Facebook-owned WhatsApp has over 1.5 billion users globally, of which India accounts for about 400 million.

Meanwhile, the WhatsApp had said it was suing NSO Group, an Israeli surveillance firm, that is reportedly behind the technology that helped unnamed entities hack into phones of roughly 1,400 users.

To say that Facebook has had a few issues in the last couple of years would be quite an understatement. Privacy issues, security issues, government issues, the list can go on and on. However, it looks like Facebook is finally getting serious about making some changes. A part of these new changes is the establishment of something called an Oversight Board – Facebook’s version of its own kind of ‘Supreme Court’. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote a blog post explaining the rationale behind having this Oversight Board.

Zuckerberg wrote, “We are responsible for enforcing our policies every day and we make millions of content decisions every week. But ultimately I don’t believe private companies like ours should be making so many important decisions about speech on our own.” He further said that the social media network is now giving “people a way to appeal our content decisions by establishing the independent Oversight Board.”

The CEO of Facebook further explained that the company took a lot of feedback from experts from all over the world on the composition of the board. “We’ve researched similar bodies, released a draft charter, run a public consultation process, engaged in workshops and published a summary of the feedback,” said Zuckerberg.

However, if someone has a problem with any of Facebook’s policies, they will have to approach the social network first and then they will able to further appeal to the board. The board’s decision, as per Zuckerberg, will be binding, irrespective of him or anyone at Facebook disagreeing with it. “The board will use our values to inform its decisions and explain its reasoning openly and in a way that protects people’s privacy,” noted Zuckerberg.

Facebook on its part has made a lot of commitments to its Oversight Board. “We’re committing to implement the board’s content decisions and taking action regarding its advisory opinions on our policies. We’re committing to preserving and protecting the board’s ability to exercise

its independent judgement. And we’re committing to providing the board with the information and resources it needs to make informed decisions.”

On paper, it does look like Facebook is giving an option to billions of users and even other bodies to point out any issues they might have. However, it remains to be seen how it pans out in the real world. The Oversight Board is expected to be setup and be fully functional by November 2020. 

Facebook is working to hide like counts, too!https://t.co/WnUrM12aZg

Tip @Techmeme pic.twitter.com/TdT73wT6A0

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) September 2, 2019

Facebook confirmed that this will be a part of the test that is being done by the social media firm. However, it is not yet live for users. The feature found by Wong was hidden inside the Android app’s codes. It is not for sure when exactly Facebook will begin its test.

For what’s worth, the company has already started testing a similar feature on its Instagram platform. However, the firm has not yet revealed how the test results fared. Instagram’s removal of ‘Likes’ or hearts is being tested in Canada, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Ireland and Japan.

From the images shared by Wong, one can see that this just doesn’t affect the ‘Likes’ on a post but is applicable to other Reactions as well. Tapping on it just shows the list of people who have liked or reacted to the post without showing any numbers.