WhatsApp obtaining trick consent for new user policy, says Centre
The Centre has told the Delhi High Court that WhatsApp, which has become an “essential digital service” during the Covid pandemic, was obtaining "trick consent" from its users for its updated 2021 privacy policy.
"WhatsApp has unleashed its digital prowess to the unsuspecting users and would like to force them to accept the updated 2021 privacy policy……the game plan is very clear, i.e, to transfer the entire existing users committed to updated 2021 privacy policy before the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill becomes the law," the Centre said an affidavit filed in the High Court.
It said that WhatsApp has access to personal, sensitive personal and business data of hundreds of millions of Indian users and has also acquired a role of an “essential digital service” which makes it imperative for its privacy policy to be examined on the touchstone of privacy principles in line with the K S Puttaswamy verdict.
The government also contended that WhatsApp was indulging in anti-users’ practices by obtaining “trick consent” from the users for its updated privacy policy.
“Millions of WhatsApp existing users, those who have not accepted the updated 2021 privacy policy are being bombarded with notifications on an everyday basis," it claimed.
The government also gave some screenshots of notifications to ask the court to restrain WhatsApp from "pushing notifications" to its users.
Facebook-owned WhatsApp last month said it had for now done away with the May 15 deadline for users to accept its privacy policy and that it would “follow up” with people who had not yet accepted the new terms of service.
The government said the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has formed a prima facie opinion that WhatsApp has contravened the provisions of Section 4 of the Competition Act, 2002 "through its exploitative and exclusionary conduct, in the garb of policy update".
The CCI had said a thorough and detailed investigation is required to ascertain the full extent, scope and impact of data sharing through involuntary consent of users, it pointed out.
The affidavit was filed in a pending PIL by Seema Singh, Meghan and Vikram Singh who sought a direction to Centre to order WhatsApp to either roll back the new privacy policy or provide an opt-out option to its users.
The Centre had said the new update privacy policy violated the Information Technology Rules of 2011 and WhatsApp may be restrained from implementing the new policy till the challenge to the validity of its policy is finally decided.
The Centre had introduced the PDP Bill, 2019 in the Lok Sabha.
“Upon enactment, this law will provide a robust regime on data protection which will limit the ability of entities such as respondent no. 1 issuing privacy policies which do not align with appropriate standards of security and data protection," it said.
More to follow...
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