A recent report shows a dozen of messages that very accurately predicted the rates for some specific stocks registered in SEBI. In each case, the messages were being passed around, just before the results were officially announced.
WhatsApp has become a very important platform to share all sorts of information. It is encrypted end-to-end, which makes it impossible for even the service provider to monitor the content shared.
There are many private WhatsApp groups of equity traders that share the latest predictions for the rates of stocks. Such texts are mostly inaccurate, but sometimes the estimations are so accurate that they can blow anyone’s mind. Such cases have lead SEBI to monitor the sources of these messages.
Finding the origin any WhatsApp message is technically possible as Whatsapp service has a time-stamp to help the service provider trace the phone number from where the message initially originated, and SEBI has this power to hand out prison sentences or fines, or both if the messages are found to be originated from insiders.
The whole task of tracing such messages is not that easy but looking at the situation it has become a necessity for SEBI to take some strong steps for this.
This is a new challenge that Indian government is facing due to the technology and to maintain its reputation and efficiency this needs to be solved as soon as possible with correct decisions.
