Delhi High Court upholds WhatsApp's privacy policy, says government should look at regulating messaging platforms

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: What could be termed as a relief for WhatsApp in India, Delhi High Court on Friday gave a nod to its new privacy policy, vindicating the chat messenger's stand that it does not infringe on users privacy.

What could be termed a not so good news for the Facebook-owned instant messaging app is that the court asked the government to examine feasibility of bringing messaging platforms like WhatsApp under regulatory framework.

WhatsApp on August 25 had indicated a significant shift in its privacy policy and said that it would start sharing user’s account information with its parent company Facebook from September 25.

A petition was filed by Karmanya Singh Sareen and Shreya Sethi against the chat messenger, Facebook Inc and Facebook India Online Pvt Ltd for the new privacy policy alleging that shift in privacy policy “compromises the rights of users.”

Opposing the petition in the court on Wednesday, the chat messenger said that the new privacy policy does not violate the privacy of users as no third party can access the messages, made water-tight by end-to-end encryption.

The new policy is likely to come into effect from September 25, however,it is not compulsory for users to agree to the new policy.

While passing its order on the petition on Friday, the High Court also asked the instant messaging app to remove all the information and data of users who decide to delete account and not to share it with Facebook. The court added that the data of users shared on the platform before 25th Sept should not be used by WhatsApp