The Supreme Court on Tuesday reprimanded tech giant and WhatsApp owner Meta regarding their privacy policy for the instant messaging platform in a hearing conducted by Chief Justice Surya, according to a report by news agency NDTV.
A bench led by Chief Justice Surya rebuked the US company and was quoted as saying, "You can't play with privacy... we will not allow you to share a single digit of our data." The bench added that they would not tolerate exploitation of Indians.
The case being heard by the Supreme Court stemmed from a challenge to the 2021 WhatsApp privacy and terms policy and primarily focused on the upholding of the Rs 213 crore fine imposed on Meta by the Competition Commission of India (CCI).
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The CCI also filed a cross-appeal about the sharing of user data for advertising purposes. The tribunal approved this, stating there was no "abuse of power" by the company.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the government, criticised the "exploitative" policy on sharing user data for commercial reasons. The Chief Justice replied, "If you can't follow our Constitution, leave India. We won't allow citizens' privacy to be compromised."
Court raises questions
The court raised important questions about the policy. It asked whether millions of poor and uneducated people in the country could understand it. "... a poor woman or a roadside vendor, or someone who only speaks Tamil... will they get it?"
"Sometimes even we have trouble understanding your policies," the court criticised Meta and WhatsApp after hearing about an 'opt out' clause. "So how will people living in rural Bihar understand them? This amounts to stealing private information. We won't allow it."
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Offering his own experience as a benchmark, the Chief Justice said, "If a message is sent to a doctor on WhatsApp... that you are feeling under the weather... and the doctor sends some medicine prescriptions, immediately you start seeing ads..."
Advocates argue...
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi and senior advocate Akhil Sibal, representing Meta and WhatsApp, argued that all messages are 'end-to-end encrypted'. This means that even the companies cannot access the content.
