New Delhi: The Central authorities on Thursday instructed the Delhi High Court that WhatsApp is acquiring “trick consent” from its customers for its up to date 2021 privateness coverage forward of the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill changing into regulation.
Centre alleged that this was being finished beneath a recreation plan to have current customers in committing to its coverage.
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In the Delhi HC listening to, the union authorities claimed that WhatsApp is indulging in anti-user practices by acquiring “trick consent” from its customers for the up to date privateness coverage.
“It is submitted that millions of WhatsApp existing users, those who have not accepted the updated 2021 privacy policy are being bombarded with notifications on an everyday basis,” centre’s affidavit said whereas citing a screenshot. It urged the courtroom to restrain WhatsApp from “pushing notifications” to its customers.
In its further counter submitted to the High Court, the Centre wrote: “The respondent no. 1 (WhatsApp) has unleashed its digital prowess to the unsuspecting users and would like to force them to accept the updated 2021 privacy policy the game plan is very clear, i.e, to transfer the entire existing user committed to updated 2021 privacy policy before the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill becomes the law.”
WhatsApp is presently accessing the private, delicate private, and enterprise knowledge of a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of Indian customers and it has additionally acquired a job that an “essential digital service” throughout Covid-19 pandemic, the affidavit added.
For this motive, the federal government has requested the courtroom for WhatsApp’s privateness coverage to be examined on the touchstone of privateness ideas as laid down in Ok.S. Puttaswamy verdict.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has fashioned a prima facie opinion that WhatsApp has contravened the provisions of Section 4 of the Competition Act, 2002 “through its exploitative and exclusionary conduct, in the garb of policy update,” it said.
The CCI has additionally opined {that a} detailed investigation must be performed to determine the complete extent, scope and affect of information sharing via involuntary consent of customers.
“The current notifications as being pushed by the respondent no.1 on its users whether existing or new is against very grain of prima facie opinion of the CCI order,” added the affidavit.
The union authorities said the aforementioned arguments in response to PIL in search of the Centre’s route in making WhatsApp both rolling again the brand new privateness coverage or offering an opt-out choice to its customers.
Centre said that WhatsApp’s new up to date privateness coverage violated the Information Technology Rules of 2011 and it could be restrained from implementing the brand new coverage until the problem to the validity of its coverage is lastly determined.
The Centre had launched the PDP Bill, 2019 within the Lok Sabha. “Upon enactment, this law will provide a robust regime on data protection which will limit the ability of entities such as respondent no. 1 issuing privacy policies which do not align with appropriate standards of security and data protection,” the affidavit said.
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WhatsApp’s ResponseÂ
Meanwhile, a press release has been issued by the favored messenger app firm whereby it said: “We reiterate that we have already responded to the Government of India and assured them that the privacy of users remains our highest priority. As a reminder, the recent update does not change the privacy of people’s personal messages. Its purpose is to provide additional information about how people can interact with businesses if they choose to do so”.
“We will not limit the functionality of how WhatsApp works in the coming weeks. Instead, we will continue to remind users from time to time about the update as well as when people choose to use relevant optional features, like communicating with a business that is receiving support from Facebook. We hope this approach reinforces the choice that all users have whether or not they want to interact with a business. We will maintain this approach until at least the forthcoming PDP law comes into effect,” the Spokesperson added.
(With Agency Inputs)
