New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday slammed WhatsApp on its privacy policy, saying that the court was the authority on data protection here.
A Constitution Bench led by Justice Dipak Misra questioned the tenor of the 2016 user license policy by WhatsApp, wondering if the company was trying to belittle right of free communication for Indian users.
We the data protection authority here. You can't violate Indian laws only to widen the language of your policy...will protect rights of our citizens to communicate freely," said the Bench.
Notably, there is no specific law on data protection or right to privacy in India.
The court further observed: "It is our constitutional duty to protect citizens' rights. We don't think any person would want all his data shared with others. You can't apply different standards of data protection in India."
It then asked the counsel for WhatsApp whether it had given an undertaking before a court in the European Union for not sharing users' data with anyone. The lawyer replied that there has, indeed, been an interim order of this nature by an international tribunal and the company has filed an appeal against this order.
"Interim orders are not usually passed by Constitution Benches but we will consider doing it in this case," added the court.
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