WhatsApp privacy policy: Government tells SC it will bring new data protection bill to safeguard citizens’ rights

Stressing on the fact that rights of citizens is sacrosanct and must be protected, the Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court that it is in the process of bringing the new data protection bill to safeguard citizens' rights. The apex court was hearing the plea filed by two students, Karmanya Singh Sareen and Shreya Sethi, challenging WhatsApp's deal with Meta to provide access to calls, photographs, texts, videos, and documents shared by users. The petitioners have said the act is a violation of their privacy and free speech.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Justice K M Joseph was hearing the case related to WhatsApp's 2021 privacy policy, as to whether the rule violates users' Right to Privacy under Article 21. The other judges on the panel were Justices Ajay Rastogi, Aniruddha Bose, Hrishikesh Roy, and C T Ravikumar.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for the Centre has told the Bench that the government had already withdrawn the old data protection bill and a new bill would be introduced in the parliament soon.

Senior Advocate Shyam Divan told the Bench: “Indian users despite being the highest user in the world are deprived of their fundamental rights. The same platform operating in other countries, especially in the European Union has higher standards of privacy and those standards are not prevalent in India.”

On this, Mehta told the bench: "The government is alive to the situation and making of the bill is under process. It's a legislative issue than the judicial issue. So, we should be given some time for that."

Justice Joseph then questioned Mehta saying, “If this matter is pending for so many years and if the government had wanted to bring some legislation it could have done it so far - why wait?"

Congress leader and senior lawyer Kapil Sibal appearing for WhatsApp told the Bench that the WhatsApp privacy policy is tight. “The privacy issue should be applicable to other platforms also. European countries have their own set of laws that are applied there. In India, we follow what the present law is. It has investment issue and has a commercial angle and has very far-reaching consequences.”

Countering Sibal the Bench said, "We are here for securing the rights of the users."

Agreeing with the Bench, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said, "If any platform is operating in India it should be citizen-centric and we had seen certain cases where privacy is being violated."

Mehta was referring to the Karnataka High Court case where the Centre had moved court against Twitter.

The Supreme Court will now hear the final arguments on January 17, 2023, and has asked the government to bring out the law till then.

The court was hearing the plea challenging the contract entered into between the two companies to provide access to calls, photographs, texts, videos, and documents shared by users is a violation of their privacy and free speech.