The Centre on Monday instructed the Delhi High Court that it views the brand new privacy policy of WhatsApp as a violation of the Indian Information Technology (IT) legislation and guidelines, and sought instructions to the social media platform to make it clear whether or not it was confirming the identical.
The central authorities’s declare was made earlier than a bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh throughout listening to of a number of pleas difficult WhatsApp’s new privacy policy, which in accordance to the platform has come into impact from May 15 and has not been deferred.
WhatsApp instructed the bench that whereas its new privacy policy has come into impact from May 15, it could not begin deleting accounts of these customers who’ve not accepted it and would strive to encourage them to get on board.
The platform mentioned there was no common or uniform time restrict after which it could begin to delete accounts as every person can be handled on case-to-case foundation.
The bench issued discover to the Centre, Facebook and WhatsApp and sought their stand on one of many pleas by a lawyer who has claimed that the brand new policy violates customers’ proper to privacy below the Constitution.
During the listening to, the Centre mentioned that in accordance to it the policy was in violation of Indian IT legal guidelines and guidelines.
It mentioned it has written to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the difficulty and a reply is awaited and subsequently, there was a necessity to keep established order with regard to implementation of the policy.
WhatsApp, opposing the rivalry, mentioned it was conforming to Indian IT legislation and guidelines and added that its policy has come into impact from May 15, but it surely will not be deleting accounts immediately.
When the matter was initially listed earlier than a single decide, the Centre had mentioned that WhatsApp was treating Indian customers in a different way from Europeans over opting out of its new privacy policy which was a matter of concern for the federal government and it was trying into the difficulty.
It had additionally mentioned it was additionally a matter of concern that Indian customers had been being “unilaterally” subjected to the change in privacy policy by the moment messaging platform and that the federal government was trying into it.
The court docket listed the matter for additional listening to on June 3.Â
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