SC notice to Centre, WhatsApp on plea alleging low privacy standards

TIL Desk/National/New Delhi/ The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Centre and WhatsApp to reply to a fresh plea alleging lower standards of privacy for Indians in comparison to European users saying it is the duty of the judiciary to protect citizens’ privacy. People have grave apprehensions that they will lose their privacy and it is our duty to protect them, the top court said.

“You may be two or three trillion companies but people value their privacy more than money,” a bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde told WhatsApp even as it sought to argue that Europe has special data protection laws which India doesn’t. The apex court issued notice to the government and the Facebook-owned app on an interim application filed by Karmanya Singh Sareen in a pending petition of 2017.

Senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for the petitioner, argued that the messaging app was applying lower standards of privacy for Indians and they be barred from sharing data with Facebook. The bench observed, “We are impressed by Mr Divan’s argument that it was proposed before us that a data protection law would be brought into force. “Now under this policy you will share data of Indians.”