India’s federal government on Monday told the Delhi High Court that it views the new privacy policy of WhatsApp as a violation of the Indian Information Technology (IT) law and rules, and sought directions to the social media platform to make it clear whether it was regulation- complaint.

The federal government’s claim was made before a bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh during hearing of several pleas challenging WhatsApp’s new privacy policy, which according to the platform has come into effect from May 15, 2021 and has not been deferred, Press Trust of India reported from New Delhi .

WhatsApp told the bench that while its new privacy policy has come into effect from May 15, it would not start deleting accounts of those users who have not accepted it and would try to encourage them to get on board.

The platform said there was no universal or uniform time limit after which it would start to delete accounts as each user would be dealt by it on case-to-case basis.

It’s worthwhile mentioning here that a German privacy watchdog last week had banned Facebook from gathering data on users of its WhatsApp chat app, citing an update to its privacy policy that it said breaches stringent European data protection rules. For that report by Indianbroadcastingworld.com, please click on: http://www.indianbroadcastingworld.com/whatsapp-confusion-in-india-continues-but-german-watchdog-cracks-the-whip/ 

Meanwhile, back to India, the Delhi court issued notice to the federal government, Facebook and WhatsApp, and sought their stand on one of the pleas by a lawyer who claimed that the new policy violates users’ right to privacy under the Indian Constitution.

During the hearing, the government said that, according to it, the policy was in violation of Indian IT laws and rules, the PTI report stated.

It said it has written to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the issue and a reply is awaited and, therefore, there was a need to maintain status quo with regard to implementation of the WhatsApp policy.

WhatsApp, opposing the contention, said it was conforming to Indian laws and added its policy has come into effect from May 15, but it won’t be deleting accounts right away.

When the matter was initially listed before a single judge, New Delhi had said that WhatsApp was treating Indian users differently from Europeans over opting out of its new privacy policy which was a matter of concern for the government and it was looking into the issue.

It had pointed out that Indian users were being “unilaterally” subjected to the change in privacy policy by the instant messaging platform and that the government was looking into this worrisome issue.

The court listed the matter for further hearing on June 3.