Delhi High Court is hearing a bunch of pleas challenging WhatsApp’s New Privacy Policy. On Monday, Centre took it before a bench of Chief Justice D N Patel & Justice Jyoti Singh, that it contemplates “WhatsApp’s new privacy policy” violates Indian Information Technology Laws & Rules, and called on social media platforms to explain if their new privacy policy was substantiating the same.
The Centre’s claim is amongst the several pleas put up against WhatsApp’s new privacy policy. According to the social media platform, their new privacy policy has come into effect form 15, May 2021 & has not been deferred.
Centre also revealed that it has written a letter to Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg upon the issue and is awaiting for a reply. They also said it is unessential to maintain this current situation with respect to enactment of the policy.
WhatsApp in their defence told the bench that their new privacy policy does not violate the Indian IT Laws & Rules, & if needed they can go rule by rule. WhatsApp further added that they have no intention of deleting accounts of those users, who do not adhere to their new privacy policy & would try to encourage them to get on board.
The platform said there was no particular time limit after which it would start to delete accounts as each user would be dealt with on a case-to-case basis.
The bench has issued a notice to the Centre, Facebook & WhatsApp, and sought their stand on one of the pleas by a lawyer, who has claimed that the new policy “violates users right to privacy under Indian Constitution”.
On June 3, the case was scheduled for further hearing.
Initially, this matter was listed before a single judge, in which the Centre had said that “WhatsApp was treating Indian users differently from Europeans over opting out of its new privacy policy which was a matter of concern for the government and it was looking into the issue.”
Centre also mentioned that it was a matter of concern that Indian users were being “unilaterally” subjected to the change in privacy policy by the instant messaging platform and that the government was looking into it.
Chetna Singh
A biblomaniac, with utmost love for reading, writing and painting. An asthete and altruistic.
