Govt’s reply sought on plea against new policy

NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court on Tuesday sought response from the central government on a plea against popular instant messaging service, WhatsApp’s decision to share user data with its parent company Facebook.

A bench of chief justice G Rohini and justice Sangita Dhingra issued notice to the Centre on a plea by two users alleging that WhatsApp, Facebook Inc and Facebook India Online Pvt Ltd’s new private policy “compromises the rights of its users”.

The bench said it would examine the issue and asked the concerned authorities to file their reply by September 14.

“The privacy policy is in stark contrast to the Privacy Policy existing from July 7, 2012. In its first revised modification on August 25, 2016, Respondents (WhatsApp, Facebook Inc. and Facebook India Online Pvt Ltd) have introduced this policy which severely compromises the rights of its users and makes the privacy rights of users completely vulnerable,” the plea by Karmanya Singh Sareen and Shreya Sethi said.

The petition said the new policy, which is likely to come into force from September 25, has sought to change the “most valuable, basic and essential feature” of WhatsApp by “unilaterally threatening to take away the protection to privacy of details and data of its users and sharing the same with Facebook and all its group companies including for the purpose of commercial advertising and marketing”.

Senior advocates Sandeep Sethi and Pratibha M Singh, appearing for the petitioners, submitted before the court that WhatsApp’s decision was “very serious breach of policy”.