PEOPLE...

In January, Whatsapp renewed its terms of service and privacy policy, which were to initially come into effect on February 8, but have since been deferred to May 15. The company said it will share details about users’ conversations with busienss accounts, and that accepting these terms were mandatory. Anyone not agreeing to the terms will need to delete their accounts, the company said at the time, triggering a seeming shift by many to rivals such as Telegram and Signal.

During a hearing on Friday, the apex court shot down submissions by Whatsapp and its parent company Facebook that the apex court did not require to examine the 2021 privacy policy since the Delhi HC was hearing a separate bunch of challenges to the same policy. The bench took note that a previous petition raising similar issues regarding the 2016 privacy policy of Whatsapp was pending before a Constitution bench, and commented that it was not appropriate for a high court to deal with the issues that were already pending before the Supreme Court.

The Union government, represented through solicitor general Tushar Mehta, urged the top court to scrutinise the 2021 policy instead of waiting for a high court to decide. “Right to privacy is a fundamental right and they (Whatsapp and Facebook) must protect Indians’ rights. They cannot share data of Indians. They cannot compromise with the privacy right of Indians,” Mehta submitted. Appearing for petitioner Karmanya Singh Sareen, senior lawyer Shyam Divan questioned Whatsapp over lowering the privacy standards. He pointed out that since Whatsapp had deferred its new policy till May 15, the SC should decide its validity before that. However, senior advocates Kapil Sibal, Arvind Datar, Mukul Rohatgi and Sidharth Luthra, who appeared for Whatsapp and Facebook, sought to emphasise that the social media entities were functioning within the bounds of the Indian laws.

“This [2021] policy is applicable for the rest of the world, including India, except Europe because Europe has a specific law. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies to these 27 countries in Europe and thus, there is a different policy. Once India also has a law in this regard, we will change accordingly,” Sibal and Datar said. “No personal information is stored or shared. It is a red herring. They are all endto-end encrypted messages and even Whatsapp cannot read these messages,” Rohatgi contended. The bench cited some reports to highlight concerns people had about their privacy. “You better clarify all this. People think that when ‘A’ messages ‘B’ and ‘B’ messages ‘C’, whole thing is read by the Facebook,” the bench told the lawyers for the tech firms, issuing notices to them.