Highlights:
- Delhi High Court hear plea against WhatsApp’s updated Privacy Policy
- Delhi High Court said if T&C of most mobile apps are read, “you would be surprised as to what all you are consenting to”
- WhatsApp’s new privacy policy has been deferred till May
On Monday, the Delhi High Court said that accepting the updated Privacy Policy from the world’s most used messaging application WhatsApp was a “voluntary” choice and one can choose not to use it altogether and even join WhatsApp if someone disagrees with its Terms and Conditions (T&Cs).
Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva said, “It is a private app. Don’t join it. It is a voluntary thing, don’t accept it. Use some other app,” to the petitioner, a lawyer, who has challenged the new Privacy Policy from WhatsApp which was slated to come into effect from next month i.e. February, however, has now been deferred until May.
The Delhi High Court also said that if people went ahead and read the terms and conditions of most of the mobile applications available on the internet right now, “you would be surprised as to what all you are consenting to”.
The court added, “Even Google maps captures all your data and stores it”.
The High Court also said that it fails to understand what data would get leaked as per the petitioner and since the issue needs consideration, it will be listed on the 25th of January due to paucity of time on Monday.
Even the central government agreed with the court that the issue needs to be analysed.
WhatsApp and Facebook Inc. were represented by Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Mukul Rohatgi told the court that the petition was not maintainable and a lot of the issues which were raised in it were lacking foundation.
Also Read: 11 Best WhatsApp Alternative Messaging Apps You Must Try
They further told the Court that the private chat messages between family and friends would continue to remain encrypted and cannot be stored by WhatsApp and this position will remain the same even under the new policy.
The change in the Privacy Policy would only affect the business chats on WhatsApp, they added.
The petition contended that the updated Privacy Policy of WhatsApp violates the right of the user to Privacy under the Constitution of India.
The petition also claimed that the updated Privacy Policy of the messaging application will allow full access into the online activity of the user without there being any supervision by the government.
Under the updated Privacy Policy, the users have to option to either accept it or exit the app, however, they have no option to share their data with other Facebook-owned or the third party apps.
The lawyer who appeared for the petitioner claimed that the option of not agreeing with the new policy was given to users in European nations, however, there was no such option for the users in India.
