The Supreme Court's concerns over privacy in WhatsApp privacy policy may not lead to any meaningful impact till the time privacy laws are enacted in India.
On Tuesday, the apex court asked government to ensure that 160 million Indian subscribers are not entrapped in any manner by service providers like WhatsApp which is offering free service. Experts feel that this has further heightened the need for a privacy laws in India.
“State has a duty to protect the citizenry rights. Since service providers like WhatsApp and Facebook say we are giving it free, the state has to ensure that 160 million citizens who are using the service are not entrapped by it,” a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra said.
Even as the WhatsApp case is still being heard in the Supreme Court, experts feel that there could have been a stronger case on privacy against the company. Centre for Internet and Society's (CIS) Pranesh Prakash feels that the case filed by the first petitioner is not a very compelling one.
"The petitioners have claimed that under the new privacy policy, WhatsApp collects the messages shared by all users. This simply isn't true: WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted. However, I do believe that Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, conducts heavy surveillance on its users and we need a strong privacy law in India to protect us from that."
There could have been a stronger case on Whatsapp discouraging people from opting out, believes Prakash.
Recently, Italy's antitrust watchdog imposed a EUR 3 million ($3.3 million or roughly Rs. 35 crore) fine on messaging service WhatsApp for allegedly obliging users to agree to sharing their personal data with its parent company Facebook.
All 28 European Union data protection authorities asked WhatsApp last year to stop sharing users' data with Facebook due to doubts over the validity of users' consent.
Meanwhile, Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) has joined as intervenors in the case. IFF's contention is on the sharing of metadata between WhatsApp and Facebook, the case on which is still pending.
