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NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court on Monday pointed out that accepting the new data sharing policy of messaging app WhatsApp is “voluntary” and people can choose not to use or join the social networking platform if they do not agree with its terms and conditions.
“It is a private app. If you think data is compromised, delete it, don’t use the app. It is a voluntary thing, use some other app,” Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva remarked, while hearing a plea by a lawyer challenging the new policy which has been deferred till May following global outrage.
Justice Sachdeva told the lawyer if the terms and conditions of most mobile apps are read closely “you would be surprised as to what all you are consenting to” and cited the case of Google maps. “Even it captures all your data and stores it,” the court said.
Due to paucity of time, the HC listed the matter for next week, saying it is yet to understand what data would be leaked according to the petitioner and to decide if notice must be issued in the plea or not. The Centre agreed and said the issue needs to be analysed even as senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for WhatsApp and parent company Facebook, told the court the plea is without any foundation.
“Private chats are completely encrypted. The change policy is for business WhatsApp,” Rohatgi said. Sibal pointed out that users have the option not to engage with business on WhatsApp if they don’t want to and safety of data would not change under the new policy.
The HC is hearing a plea by a lawyer that the updated privacy policy violates users’ right to privacy provided by the Constitution. It has claimed that the new privacy policy of WhatsApp allows full access into a user’s online activity without there being any supervision by the government.
The petition also claims that the option not to agree with the new policy was given to users in European nations, but not in India.
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