WhatsApp Imposed A Ban On The New Privacy Policy, Told HC – Will Not Force It To Accept
New Delhi, 9th July 2021: Amidst the ongoing controversy over privacy policy, WhatsApp told the Delhi High Court that it has put a stay on its privacy policy. WhatsApp told the Delhi High Court on Friday that till the time the Data Protection Bill comes into effect, it will not compel users to adopt a new privacy policy and has put the policy on hold for now.
WhatsApp also made it clear before a bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh that in the meantime it will not limit the scope of access for users who do not adopt the new privacy policy. Senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for WhatsApp, said, “We have automatically agreed to put a stay on this (policy). We will not force people to accept it.
Despite this, WhatsApp will continue to show the option of updates to its users, WhatsApp’s lawyer Salve said. Let us tell you that the court is hearing the appeals of Facebook and its subsidiary WhatsApp filed against the order of a single bench refusing to stay the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) order of inquiry into WhatsApp’s new privacy policy. have been done.
In an earlier hearing, the Center had informed the Delhi High Court that before the Personal Data Protection Bill comes into force as a law, WhatsApp is trying to pressurize its users to get their consent to the new privacy policy. And sending them notifications multiple times everyday to get their approval. Terming as an anti-user practice by WhatsApp sending frequent notifications to its customers to ‘smartly get their approval’, the central government requested the court to stop the messaging system.
The Center made this claim in an affidavit filed in response to several petitions challenging the new privacy policy of WhatsApp. The first of these petitions was filed by advocate Chaitanya Rohilla in January. It said that with the new privacy policy of WhatsApp, it will continue to get information about the complete online activities of the user, that too without government monitoring. At the same time, WhatsApp had said in its affidavit that its new privacy policy will not affect the privacy of any person.
