In an attempt to modernise their operations, Islamabad Police will now use WhatsApp to communicate. Police officials claim that other means of communications being used right now are outdated and slow.
The idea to use the instant messaging app was put forward by the new Inspector General (IG) of Islamabad Police. The new IG Police was appointed on Wednesday. He is said to have asked the police officers to create groups on WhatsApp which include station house officials, officers in a particular station, sub-divisional police force, superintendents and senior superintendents of police.
Sources from the police claim that several groups have been created on the messaging app. Two separate groups, named ICT Police Operation and ICT Police Security, were created for the operations and security wings. The IG Police is part of both of these groups.
Up until now, the Islamabad police relied on wireless handsets, landline numbers, mobile phones and SMS to communicate. All communication methods, other than the wireless handsets, could only be used for one-to-one communications and there was no way of recording those conversations as part of the police records.
Under the Wireless and Telegraph Act 1949, all communications through the wireless headset are recorded. The concerned officer’s staff records each message that comes through and is forwarded to the superiors. The method, police sources claim, is time consuming and sometimes the staff opts to not inform their superiors considering some messages to unrelated.
WhatsApp, they claim, will solve the problem as all officers will get the messages immediately on their smartphones. The messaging app supports documents, images, videos, location and audios other than text messages, so the police officers will be able to send multiple types of data, if required.
Via: Dawn News
Since WhatsApp has become end-to-end encrypted, this is a good step.
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they still record whom u sent msg.
I think uing Whatsapp, Gmail and Yahoo etc for official communication is prohibited by Government of Pakistan
Using Whatsapp is simply breach of security policy
they use end to end encryption. now it is safe to use.
How safe! Everything has to pass through Whatsapp database.
“encrypted”
End-to-end encryption means WhatsApp’s servers don’t know what is inside a message.
This doesn’t apply to uploaded media (shared files, images).
i don’t know whether or not the company will secretly keep a record on users. i only want to say that latest update uses end-to-end encryption automatically encodes each message with an algorithm that can only be unlocked by the sender and recipient also provide protection against hackers and identity thieves.
End to End encryption? I have used some code to decrypt whatsapp communication. It is not safe by any means.
And how will they use it for police? will they text or voice call? i am not able to understand this non-sense. Why not develop their own app and add better ways of communication suitable for policing?
Which code did you use to decrypt the messages? If you used the security code provided by WhatsApp to the users, it’s meant to decrypt the communications. Can please you share your methodology and findings?
Signal’s code (client + server) is open source. Someone can deploy that on local servers and use it. WhatsApp hired the cryptographer behind Signal to add the same encryption system to WhatsApp.
Since a very long time whatsapp has been used for communication. The whole of Punjab government is on whatsapp and communicates like that. Recently about a year back GB government even introduced it. I don’t know about the police part but administration was using whatsapp. It’s a good step
While the data is encrypted, the meta-data isn’t. WhatsApp might not know the actual message, but it does keep track of who sent a message/called whom, and how often, and at what times. And, likely, from where (lat/long coordinates). This could still be a bad thing.
So wives and kids of police officers/officials will have full access to so called “Encrypted Communication”
All official communication of police will be open to whoever gets access to their “Smart Phone”!
And in case a single phone is hacked or lost, hacker etc will have full access to official communication.
Use of Whatsapp for any Govt Official communication is a great threat and can be easily misused
We will soon see “Police Leaks….”
……………………………………………….
it will be so easy to get one added to this list and be part of the group and no body would know.
hahaha. Innovation at best in Police department! Pretty funny but nonsense!
Or they could Use Telegram messager, its safe and could based to saved all there data permanently.
Read more https://telegram.org/
Well, Islamabad Police- i don’t know why giving such technology to such culprits. Especially talking about I-9 Industrial Area Police Station, one of the most worst station with Worst Behavior. Therefore i oppose such technology to culprits/or giving any android handsets to such culprits.