Can WhatsApp share user information for commercial gain?: SC

May 16, 2017

A five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court raised the question whether online social networking application, WhatsApp, could reveal the identity of its subscribers, allegedly for commercial exploitation. Hearing the validity of WhatsApp's privacy policy under which it shares information of its users with Facebook, SC said the “ trust” had been taken away after the new privacy policy was brought in. Senior advocates K K Venugopal, Kapil Sibal and Siddharth Luthra, appearing for WhatsApp and Facebook, refuted the allegations and told the bench that messages, videos and pictures shared on their platforms were end-to-end encrypted preventing even WhatsApp to read them. They contended that only phone number, device ID, registration ID and last location of a WhatsApp user were shared with Facebook. The court while hearing a petition filed by 19-year-old Karmanya Singh Sareen, 22-year-old Shreya Sethi, challenging the constitutional validity of WhatsApp's privacy policy rejected the plea of WhatsApp that it was not forcing users to use its services and they were free to leave the platform. It said the issue had to be adjudicated in the light of constitutional provision as users had alleged violation of their fundamental rights. Advocate Madhavi Divan, appearing for petitioners told the bench that many foreign countries had restrained WhatsApp from sharing information of its users.