Delhi HC issues notice to Centre, social media platforms on plea against WhatsApp's new privacy policy
May 17, 2021
New Delhi [India], May 17 : The Delhi High Court on Monday sought the stand of the central government, Facebook and WhatsApp over a plea challenging WhatsApp's new privacy policy.
A division bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh issued a notice to the Centre and the social media platforms and asked them to file a reply on the petition.
A fresh petition filed by petitioner Chaitanya Rohilla sought directions to the central government to formulate Social Media Intermediary Guidelines as the new WhatsApp privacy policy of Jan 2021 is violative of Article 21 which enshrines the right to privacy.
The court has also tagged all the matters concerning WhatsApp privacy policy and listed the matter for June 3 for further hearing.
ASG Chetan Sharma, appearing for the Union of India, said that India has the largest number of users of WhatsApp in the world and there is an imminent need to maintain the status quo.
WhatsApp replied to another plea which was filed by Dr Seema Singh, Meghan and Vikram Singh seeking directions to the Union of India to order the social media platform to either roll back its policy or in the alternative provide an option to the users of its platform to opt-out of the January 4 privacy policy.
