IT ministry sends notice to WhatsApp to take back its new Privacy Policy

The ministry has given 7-day time to instant messaging app WhatsApp to respond to notice or "necessary steps in consonance with law will be taken".

New Delhi: India's IT ministry has sent notice to WhatsApp to take back its new Privacy Policy.

The ministry has given 7-day time to the instant messaging app to respond to notice or "necessary steps in consonance with law will be taken", sources told Zee Media.

The IT ministry had sent notice on May 18 to WhatsApp to withdraw its Privacy Policy 2021.

Amid the raging privacy debate, India took up the issue of discriminatory treatment of Indian users vis-à-vis users in Europe by WhatsApp. The Ministry has said, "It is irresponsible, for WhatsApp to leverage this position to impose unfair terms and conditions on Indian users"

Meanwhile, on May 17, WhatsApp on Monday told the Delhi High Court that it has not deferred the May 15 deadline for users to accept its new privacy policy. Kapil Sibal, the senior advocate who is representing WhatsApp, had submitted before the HC bench that it is trying to get users on board. However, if the users do not agree to the privacy policy, then the company will slowly delete these user accounts, Sibal said.

 The High Court has adjourned the matter till June 3.

The HC was hearing a plea against WhatsApp's new privacy policy in which the petitioners sought directions to the Centre to direct WhatsApp to roll back their policy or provide an option to the users of opt-out of the January 4, 2021, update.

In February, the High Court had issued notice on the plea.

Last week, WhatsApp said that its users will have to accept the upcoming privacy policy or else they will lose access to some crucial functions. Although users will not immediately lose their accounts or face curtailed functionalities on the platform on May 15, but they will have to eventually go through limited functions if they fail to accept the new norms in the due course of time.

“For the last several weeks we've displayed a notification in WhatsApp providing more information about the update. After giving everyone time to review, we're continuing to remind those who haven’t had the chance to do so to review and accept. After a period of several weeks, the reminder people receive will eventually become persistent,” a WhatsApp FAQs page said.

At that time, you’ll encounter limited functionality on WhatsApp until you accept the updates. This will not happen to all users at the same time, it had added.