Brazil: judge blocks WhatsApp for several hours

Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging service was blocked for several hours on Tuesday, 19 July, after a judge ordered the suspension of the service until the company revealed encrypted messages pertaining to a criminal investigation. The order was overturned several hours later by the Federal Supreme Court, which said that the measure seemed ‘scarcely reasonable or proportional’. WhatsApp argued, as it has done before, that the messages related to the case at hand are not stored on its servers and cannot be turned over to the courts.