The Supreme Court on Tuesday came down strongly on WhatsApp and its parent company Meta over concerns related to user data sharing, asserting that citizens’ right to privacy cannot be diluted in the name of technology or business practices.
“You can’t play with the right to privacy of citizens of this country in the name of data sharing,” the apex court told the tech giant, according to PTI. The bench also questioned Meta’s argument regarding user consent and opt-out mechanisms, observing that asking where the question of opting out arises amounts to “a decent way of committing theft of private information.”
Expanding the scope of the matter, the Supreme Court impleaded the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) as a party to the proceedings and said it would pass interim orders on February 9.
The observations were made while the court was hearing pleas filed by WhatsApp and Meta challenging an order of the Competition Commission of India (CCI), which had imposed a penalty over WhatsApp’s “take it or leave it” privacy policy. The case raises significant questions about data protection, user consent, and the limits of corporate practices in the digital ecosystem.
