The Delhi High Court on Thursday said that there is urgency to hear the pleas challenging WhatsApp’s new Privacy Policy. The court further said that WhatsApp will not transfer any data to Facebook until the data protection bill is finalized. Moreover, it will not block the accounts of users who have not accepted the new Privacy.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for WhatsApp told the court that as per his client’s (WhatsApp) stand, the current accounts will not be blocked by WhatsApp until and unless there is any specific guideline issues by the regulatory board. On July 9, when the court was hearing a plea by WhatsApp and Facebook against probe by Competition Commission of India into its privacy policy, the instant messaging platform had told the court that till the data protection bill came into force, it would not compel users to opt for its new privacy policy as it has been put on hold.
The plea has claimed that the new privacy policy of WhatsApp allowed full access into a user’s online activity without there being any supervision by the government. In its response, WhatsApp claimed that the new policy did not affect a user’s privacy as personal messages continued to be protected by end-to-end encryption.
