Govt directs WhatsApp to withdraw its new privacy policy: Sources

Quoting sources, news agency PTI reported that the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has directed the Facebook-owned WhatsApp to withdraw its new privacy policy.

New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has directed the Facebook-owned WhatsApp to withdraw its new privacy policy.

Quoting sources in the government, a PTI report said: "IT Ministry directs WhatsApp to withdraw its new privacy policy."

The report further said that the government is of the view that the WhatsApp privacy policy changes undermines values of privacy, data security and also harms rights of Indian citizens.

The government has given seven days to WhatsApp to respond to the notice and if no satisfactory response is received, necessary steps in consonance with law will be taken, sources informed.

The Ministry has also strongly taken up the issue of WhatsApp's 'discriminatory treatment' to Indian users vis-a-vis users in Europe.

In a communication to WhatsApp on May 18, the Ministry has once again told the messaging platform to withdraw its privacy policy 2021, they said.

The Ministry, in its communication, has drawn attention of WhatsApp as to how its new privacy policy is a violation of several provisions of the existing Indian laws and rules.

According to an earlier PTI report, the government has been "pro-actively" looking at best possible options around WhatsApp new privacy rules.

"The ministry is cognisant of this problem. Today, Germany has banned this privacy policy of WhatsApp. The ministry is proactively looking at what we can do about it," MeitY Special Secretary and Financial Advisor Jyoti Arora said at an Assocham event on Thursday.

On May 10, WhatsApp said in a statement that it will not delete any account for not accepting its new privacy update, but users not agreeing to the controversial terms after "several weeks" will not be able to access their chat list, and eventually, will not be able to answer incoming phone or video calls over the app.

“This will not happen to all users at the same time. You won't be able to access your chat list, but you can still answer incoming phone and video calls. If you have notifications enabled, you can tap on them to read or respond to a message or call back a missed phone or video call,” it said.

WhatsApp accounts are generally deleted after 120 days of inactivity, wherein inactivity refers to users not connecting to the messaging platform.

Early this month, the Facebook-owned company had said users not accepting its privacy policy update by its May 15 deadline will not face deletion or lose functionality of their accounts on the said date.

In January this year, WhatsApp had informed users about the changes in its terms of service and public policy through an in-app notification. Users were initially given time till February 8 to agree to the new terms in order to continue using the platform.

According to WhatsApp, the key updates include more information about its service and how it processes user data; how businesses can use Facebook hosted services to store and manage their WhatsApp chats; and how WhatsApp partners with Facebook to offer integrations across the company products.

WhatsApp has insisted that the acceptance of the privacy policy update does not expand its ability to share user data with Facebook.

However, the new policy had faced severe backlash over user concerns that data was being shared with parent company, Facebook.

According to an estimate, there are around 40 crore WhatsApp users in India, which is one-fifth of its 200 crore users across the globe.

(With PTI Inputs)