new delhi the home ministrys order authorising 10 intelligence and law enforcement agencies to intercept information in computers has not only made the countrys internet service providers legally bound to share decrypted data for purposes of lawful interception but could also lead them to block services of foreignbased chat applications for which they do not have the encryption key while indian internet service providers including airtel vodafone and jio are bound by the information technology act and rules to share data generated transmitted received or stored in any computer resources in a decrypted and readable format with the authorised agencies making interception requests approved by the competent authority it also makes it imperative on the foreignbased server hosting such information to provide the decrypted version to the same agencies in case the foreign companies fail to do so they can be prosecuted under section 69 of the it act that provides for up to 7 years imprisonment for defaulters an intelligence functionary said the official added since internet service providers were providing the services of foreignbased applications such as whatsapp telegram etc in case they were unable to share their encryption key with the authorised agencies the naturally corollary is to ask them to block the said applications from being accessed by users here considering that these applications have a large subscriber base in india and blocking will hurt them economically this might put pressure on foreignbased internet companies to share the encryption key in case of lawful interception requests the official said according to an intelligence bureau officer nearly 2025 lawful interception requests were moved by ib on a daily basis however a former intelligence officer said anything between 2500030000 phones may be getting tracked by ib countrywide on a daily basis and some 1 lakh by all agencies and state police put together thats a small number compared to over 120 crore indian population the officer saidthe officer also said that with computers here mostly using ipv4 internet protocol version 4 which hosts dynamic addresses and makes it difficult for agencies to track the location it was imperative to make internet service providers assist intelligence and law enforcement agencies for lawful interception