SC seeks WhatsApp reply on plea for non-sharing of UPI data with any third party

Senior advocate Arvind Dattar, appearing for WhatsApp India, said, however, no formal notice has been issued to it in the plea for impleadment in the matter

The Supreme Court on Monday asked WhatsApp, an instant messaging app, to file response on a plea seeking a direction to the RBI and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to ensure that data collected on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platforms were not shared with their parent company or any other third party under any circumstances.

A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian said if WhatsApp does not file its reply, then the averment made in the writ petition filed by petitioner Rajya Sabha MP Binoy Viswam will be taken as accepted.

Several interlocutory applications have been filed in the plea which also seek direction for framing regulation to ensure that data collected on UPI platforms is not shared or used in any manner other than for processing payments.

Senior advocate Krishna Venugopal, appearing for the petitioner, said the last time the court asked the company if Israeli sypware Pegasus has breached their system, it stated that the issue was not pleaded in the petition, which is wrong.

The bench said it proposes that the petition be tagged with a similar plea pending in the top court and asked the Centre to file an affidavit on the issue of spyware.

Venugopal said till date Facebook and WhatsApp have not filed a counter-affidavit in the matter, despite the petition being pending for months and they should also be asked to file counter-affidavit.

At the fag end of the hearing, the CJI told the counsels for WhatsApp that pleas challenging its new privacy policy are pending before the Supreme Court and posted the matter for further hearing after four weeks.

It said that since NPCI is the owner and operator of the UPI, it would be more appropriate for them to respond on the status of “compliance of WhatsApp with the system rules /procedural guidelines governing UPI".

Earlier, WhatsApp had denied in the court the allegations that its data can be hacked by Israeli spyware Pegasus, which had led to a controversy last year over breach of privacy following claims that Indian journalists and human rights activists were among those globally spied upon by unnamed entities.

Prior to this, the apex court on October 15, last year had issued notice to RBI and others on the plea of Viswam seeking direction for framing regulation to ensure that data collected on UPI platforms is not “exploited” or used in any manner other than for processing payments.

It had also sought responses of the Centre, RBI, NPCI and others including Google Inc, Facebook Inc, WhatsApp and Amazon Inc on the plea.

“The RBI and NPCI have permitted the three members of 'Big Four Tech Giants' i.e. Amazon, Google and Facebook/WhatsApp (Beta phase) to participate in the UPI ecosystem without much scrutiny and in spite of blatant violations of UPI guidelines and RBI regulations,” the plea has claimed.

The plea has alleged that this conduct of RBI and NPCI put the sensitive financial data of Indian users at huge risks, especially when these entities have been “continuously accused of abusing dominance and compromising data”, among other things.

(With PTI Inputs)