The Supreme Court (SC) of India has questioned WhatsApp and Facebook on introducing new stringent privacy policy for the Indian users. The apex court has asked the social media giants about why Indian users haven’t been provided with the same leniency on accepting new privacy policies as the European users. According to a report from the Livemint, the SC has said that it will have to intervene in the matter to protect the privacy rights of the Indian citizens — more details on the story ahead.
People Value Privacy More than Money Says Supreme Court
The bench comprising of Chief Justice of India (CJI) - AS Bopanna, SA Bobde, and V Ramasubramanian said that Indian users are very concerned about their privacy since the time WhatsApp has introduced its new privacy policies.
The bench said, “You (Facebook and WhatsApp) may be a $2-3 trillion company, but people value their privacy more than money.” The SC was hearing an application on why the privacy standards for Indian users are lower than that for the European users.
The application submitted to the SC said that there is no clarity on when the Data Protection Legislation will come into effect for the country. Thus, until then, the apex court needs to overlook the new privacy policies introduced by WhatsApp to protect the rights of crores of Indian citizens.
Facebook and WhatsApp have both denied the allegations made by the government about sharing data of their users. The social media giants have told the court that all the fears are ‘baseless’.
The companies said that the same privacy policy has been introduced in other countries (except European nations) where there are active data protection laws.
For the unaware, WhatsApp introduced new privacy policies in January this year which hasn’t gone down too well with the users across the globe. The new policies were to come into effect from February 8, 2021, but now the date has been extended to May 15, 2021.
