Govt wants WhatsApp to take user's 'consent' before being added to groups

WhatsApp users may get relief from being added to groups without their consent in future. The government has requested the popular instant messaging platform to introduce a feature seeking user's consent before adding them to any of the groups, The Financial Express has reported.

The move has been taken after considering constant complaints received by some government agencies from people that they were being added to groups repeatedly without their consent.

The complaints were brought to the notice of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) by government agencies. Following this, the ministry decided to take up the matter with the messaging platform, said the report citing a senior government official.

According to the official, the MeitY wrote to WhatsApp seeking an action to prevent such practice. In response, the messenger giant said that as per their policy, group admin must have the user’s number added in the phonebook and if the user exits the group twice, then he/she cannot be added a third time.

However, the ministry, in its next letter, sought WhatsApp attention towards cases when even after users exited a particular group twice, they were added through a different admin or in some cases a new group was formed with a different mobile number and these users were added to that new group, the official told the publication.

With this, the ministry has again urged them to explore introducing a feature where a user’s consent is taken before adding him/her to any group, said the official.