WhatsApp users’ privacy: SC notice to Centre, TRAI, FB

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, January 16

The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Centre, telecom regulator TRAI, Facebook and WhatsApp seeking their response to a petition seeking protection of WhatsApp users’ privacy.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar asked the companies and the government to file their response within two weeks.

Appearing for KS Sareen and another petitioner, senior counsel Harish Salve pleaded that WhatsApp sharing data of its 155 million users with Facebook amounted to infringing on privacy guaranteed under Articles 21 and 19. It was also in violation of the TRAI rules. The government and TRAI were duty-bound to protect the privacy of citizens, Salve contended.

At one stage, the Chief Justice pointed out that WhatsApp was a free messaging service and the users were free to quit if they did not want to comply with the service provider’s terms and conditions. Nevertheless, it issued notice on the plea.

The Delhi High Court directed WhatsApp on September 23, 2016, not to share its users’ data collected till September 25, 2016, under its old policy, but let the service provider to use the data collected after September 2016 for commercial purposes under its revised policy. The petitioner has come to SC challenging the High Court verdict.