From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court that it contemplates to introduce a Data protection bill in the winter session of Parliament (in November-January) to safeguard the interests of the Indian users of the US-based WhatsApp messaging services and prevent their discrimination against other overseas users.
A 5-judge Constitution Bench comprising Justices K M Joseph, Ajay Rastogi, Aniruddha Bose, Hrishikesh Roy and C T Ravikumar posted the matter for further consideration on January 17.
The constitution bench is hearing pleas by two students – Karmanya Singh Sareen and Shreya Sethi – seeking to restrain WhatsApp from implementing its new privacy policy in India. The application by two students was filed before a constitution bench wherein 2016 policy is under challenge.
The notice on the plea by the two students was issued on February 15, 2021.
The petition by two students sought a direction to the web service platforms to apply the same privacy policy which is made applicable to the users in the European Union region.
They contended that “One set of privacy standards apply to Europe and a different set of
standards apply to Indians. This happens when the Personal Data Protection Bill is pending and “there is a huge differentiation between Europeans and Indians.”
Under the new privacy policy, the users have been asked to agree to its new data-sharing norms, a key point of which is sharing data from business conversations with Facebook.
The users were, however, concerned about privacy since it was not optional. The concern of the petitioner students was that the new data-sharing policy does not apply to users in Europe.
