In a win-win situation for both the petitioners and messaging giant WhatsApp, the Delhi high court on Friday gave its go-ahead to WhatsApp’s new policy on sharing data with its parent company Facebook
In a win-win situation for both the petitioners and messaging giant WhatsApp, the Delhi high court on Friday gave its go-ahead to WhatsApp’s new policy on sharing data with its parent company Facebook, but it also issued a slew of directions to safeguard users’ privacy.
The high court directed the instant messaging service provider to delete the information of users who deleted their accounts, and also told WhatsApp not to share any information with Facebook till September 25. The new policy is expected to be implemented from September 25.
In case of users who choose to continue using the app, their information, data and details till September 25, from when the new policy comes into effect, shall not be shared with the social networking site, the court told WhatsApp.
The court also asked telecom regulator Trai to examine the feasibility of bringing Internet messaging applications like WhatsApp under the stat-utory regulatory framework.
WhatsApp is, however, free to share information on users who haven’t opted out.
These directions came on a PIL filed by Karmanya Singh Sareen, a second-year Imperial College London student, and Shreya Sethi, a final-year law student at Amity, who had challenged WhatsApp’s new privacy policy.
In the 15-page verdict, directions were also issued to the Centre and Telecom Regulatory Auth-ority of India (Trai) to examine the feasibility of bringing the functioning of internet messaging ap-plications like WhatsApp under the statutory regulatory framework.
Senior advocate Pratibha M. Singh, who had argued on behalf of the two students, said: “It is a pathbreaking judgment protecting the interests of WhatsApp users. It is a major dent on their policy, definitely. WhatsApp will have to make changes to its policy to incorporate the directions of the court. For future, it will create sensitivity among people that all their data could be shared with Facebook. If users make a conscious choice to share, then it’s fine.”
The bench said it was issuing the directions as WhatsApp, while launching its app initially, had provided complete security and protection of privacy, and also as the issue relating to an individual’s right to privacy was yet to be decided by the Supreme Court.
“Having regard to the complete security and protection of privacy provided by WhatsApp initially... and keeping in view that the issue (on) an individual’s right of privacy as a distinct basis of a cause of action is yet to be decided by a larger bench of the Supreme Court, we consider it appropriate to issue the following directions to protect the interests of the users of WhatsApp,” the bench had said.
