Messaging platform WhatsApp has been in quite a bit of trouble with the Indian government, ever since it announced the new changes to its privacy policy in January this year, something that users, the Courts and the IT Ministry have been alike in frowning upon.
However, it now seems that everyone might get a little breather, as WhatsApp has just informed the Delhi High Court that it is temporarily putting the new terms on hold. This means that for now, users will not be forced into accepting the new guidelines, at least until the Data Protection Bill becomes operational. Moreover, the functionality of users who have not opted for the new policy, will not be affected for the time being.
The social media giant provided this clarification to a bench comprised of Chief Justice D N Patel, and Justice Jyoti Singh. This comes even after both the messaging app and parent company Facebook have repeatedly been filing pleas with the Court on the issue. The latest hearing was in regards to a the dismissal of the firms’ appeals against the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) decision to launch a probe into the new privacy policy, at the hands of a single-judge bench. The two companies had challenged the judgement a while ago.
Senior Advocate Harish Salve was representing WhatsApp during the hearing, and told Delhi High Court that the platform has finally responded to a notice by the MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology). During his argument, Salve explained that “WhatsApp will not limit functionality for some time and continue to show users the updated until Data Protection Bill comes into force.” However, the update might continue to be displayed to users, asking them whether or not they would opt to agree to it.
India is not the only country that has been calling WhatsApp and Facebook out for the changes to the privacy policy, even as the service continues to assert that personal messages will not be covered in this policy, and will be protected from being shared with business partners or sponsors through end-to-end encryption. Recently, the firm had accepted to halt the enforcement of the new rules after an order by the European Union, something which had further fueled the ire of MeitY, which questioned why the two countries were being treated differently (since WhatsApp had, at first, stoutly been refusing to stop the enforcement in India).
For the unversed, the Data Protection Bill is pending approval to be made into an Act. If enforced, it will bring with it a new set of guidelines on how user data can be used only after obtaining consent from those concerned, and will also cover adequate safeguards against any violations of the guidelines. Any firms found to be in contravention of Bill, will be liable to a fine of ₹2 crore, or 5% of the global turnover, once the Bill comes into effect. This could mean a significant change to the way that WhatsApp had been planning to bring out its new policy, in India.
