Brazil’s Supreme Court late Tuesday lifted a block on the popular WhatsApp chat service that had shut off service for millions of users across the country earlier in the day.
Supreme Court President Ricardo Lewandowski overturned a decision by a lower court in Rio de Janeiro to block the service after the company refused to turn over instant messages sought by police in a criminal investigation.
In Brazil, WhatsApp faced two previous shutdowns one last December, and another in May for not turning over digital information.
Both of those bans were also quickly overturned on appeal by higher court judges. In March, a Facebook executive was briefly taken into custody for refusing to comply with similar orders to turn over information from WhatsApp.