Supreme Court WhatsApp Privacy Case: on tuesday Supreme Court Meta (Meta) and WhatsApp These companies have been reprimanded in very harsh terms. Misuse of Indians’ personal data and tampering with privacy will not be tolerated under any circumstances, the court clarified. “If you cannot respect the Constitution of India and abide by the laws, leave the country,” the court expressed its displeasure.
This entire controversy is to WhatsApp’s 2021 privacy policy. Under the mandatory policy, WhatsApp had made it mandatory to share users’ personal information with Facebook’s parent company Meta. Users were not given any option to opt-out of this policy. That is, if you want to use WhatsApp, you must consent to sharing your data with Meta.
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The Competition Commission of India (CCI) had slapped a hefty fine of ₹213.14 crore on WhatsApp for abuse of dominance. Meta has approached the Supreme Court against this fine.
During the hearing, Chief Justice Suryakant shared a shocking experience. He said, “If a message is sent to a doctor about an ailment on WhatsApp, it immediately starts a flood of drug advertisements. How is this data used for advertising without the user’s consent?” The court took a swipe at WhatsApp’s policy saying, “Your policy is so complicated that even we don’t understand it. How will the poor people of the country, street vendors or women speaking regional languages understand it? You cannot tamper with the country’s right to privacy.”
The Supreme Court has given clear orders to Meta that the hearing will not proceed until the company submits a written affidavit to the court stating that “we will not misuse the data of users”. The court has asked Meta to be transparent about its data security policy.
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