Two youngsters have recently moved to Delhi high court, challenging the messaging service WhatsApp’s decision to share the user data with parent company Facebook.
A bench of comprising the Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal asked the Centre and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Tuesday to further respond by September 14 to the plea that has questioned why WhatsApp modified its earlier privacy policy, leaving the users vulnerable.
Petitioners Shreya Sethi and Karmanya Singh Sareen have alleged the new policy changes the “most basic, valuable and also essential feature” of WhatsApp and does not take informed consent of the users in India about the sharing of their information with Facebook.
The policy, they said, “unilaterally threatens to take away further the protection of privacy of details and data of its users and also sharing the same with Facebook and all its group companies, including for the purpose of commercial advertising and marketing”.
The petition argued that the “manner in which so-called consent is sought to be taken has been highly deceptive in as much as almost the entire community of the users of WhatsApp are not equipped to even read, much less comprehend, the consequences of the terms and conditions on the basis whereupon, WhatsApp is pretending to obtain consent of the users.”
