The Supreme Court on Thursday said it would take up on January 17, 2023 a plea by two students contending that WhatsApp's policy to share users' data with parent company Facebook and others is a violation of their privacy and free speech.WITH THE Centre stating that the preparation of a new Bill on data privacy is “already on”, the Supreme Court on Thursday adjourned the hearing on a plea challenging WhatsApp’s privacy policy for India users till January 2023.
Appearing for the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told a five-judge Constitution bench presided by Justice K M Joseph that “the government is alive to situation” and “preparation of Bill is already on”. He said the matter “needs a legislative response than a judicial response” and urged the court to defer the hearing.
He told the bench, also comprising Justices Ajay Rastogi, Aniruddha Bose, Hrishikesh Roy and C T Ravikumar, that the stand of the government is that “Indian citizens cannot be discriminated against other consumers of WhatsApp… If you are operating in India, you have to comply with Indian laws”, and that Indian users must be provided with “equal degree of privacy as you are treating others”.
Pointing out that the matter had been pending for quite some time and if the government wanted to bring some legislation, it could have done it, Justice Joseph asked: “Why wait?”
Mehta responded that a Bill was introduced but subsequently withdrawn. “New one is in the making,” he said, adding that he could not get the exact status as the matter was listed for hearing all of a sudden on Thursday.
Appearing for the petitioners, Senior Advocate Shyan Diwan said that after WhatsApp was taken over by Meta, there had been a change in the company’s privacy policy. The degree of protection and privacy enjoyed by European users is higher, he said, adding that privacy being a universal human right, Indian users should not be at a disadvantage as compared to users abroad till the Bill takes shape.
Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for WhatsApp, said the EU policy was to cater to EU laws and that ultimately it will depend on the law in force in each country.
Mehta said he was “not making it WhatsApp centric” but “citizen centric”, adding that “many of the directions of the Centre are flouted, many of the directions under the technical regime are flouted”.
Taking note of the submissions, the bench fixed January 16, 2023 for the next hearing.