New Delhi: After the Indian authorities as soon as once more directed the Facebook-owned messaging app to withdraw its controversial consumer privateness coverage, WhatsApp on Monday responded to the considerations raised and warranted that the privateness of customers “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,” IANS quoted a WhatsApp spokesperson as saying in an announcement.
The reply got here because the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology despatched a brand new discover to WhatsApp final week for withdrawing its up to date privateness coverage and gave the moment messaging platform time until May 25 to answer the identical failing which “all necessary steps in consonance with the law” may very well be taken.
In the communication despatched to WhatsApp, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology referred to as it an undermining of the values of informational privateness and information safety.
This was the second communication despatched to the messaging platform to withdraw its controversial privateness coverage because the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had earlier in January this 12 months written to WhatsApp Global Chief Executive Officer Will Cathcart and requested him to withdraw the most recent privateness and coverage replace on the messaging platform.
The letter had identified that privateness replace enabled WhatsApp and different Facebook firms “to make invasive and precise inferences about users”.
“This approach has the potential to infringe on core values of data privacy, user choice, and autonomy of Indian users. Given the huge user base of WhatsApp and Facebook in India, the consolidation of this sensitive information also exposes a very large segment of Indian citizens to greater information security risk and vulnerabilities creating a potential honeypot of information,” the ministry mentioned within the letter.
