WhatsApp Told By Centre To Scrap Privacy Policy Or Have A 'Satisfactory' Response Ready Within A Week
- 4 years ago
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, better known as MeitY has for the second time asked messaging giant WhatsApp to withdraw its new Privacy Policy.
MeitY has now allowed WhatsApp as little as seven days to respond to this notice with a deadline of 25th May. It added that if the response from WhatsApp wasn't satisfactory, the government body would enact lawful action against the social networking giant.
Now, Facebook-owned WhatsApp had earlier stated that it had delayed the necessity of accepting its new Privacy Policy beyond 15th May. While WhatsApp users who do not accept the new policy don't lose functionality, the Ministry in its communication today stated that deferral of the privacy policy doesn't really spare WhatsApp from the whole ordeal. The ministry body still claims that WhatsApp putting forth a Privacy Policy of this kind blatantly disrespects the "values of informational privacy, data security and user choice for Indian users."
Alleging discriminatory treatment to Indian users as opposed to users in Europe, the Ministry has further stated that, “As you are doubtlessly aware, many Indian citizens depend on WhatsApp to communicate in everyday life. It is not just problematic, but also irresponsible, for WhatsApp to leverage this position to impose unfair terms and conditions on Indian users, particularly those that discriminate against Indian users vis-à-vis users in Europe.”
Ministry in its communication has also not spared to show WhatsApp as to how its new Privacy Policy violates several provisions of the existing Indian laws and rules.
In a statement, WhatsApp has reverted saying, “We continue to engage with the government and we reaffirm what we said before that this update does not impact the privacy of personal messages for anyone. Our goal is to provide information about new options we are building that people will have, to message a business on WhatsApp, in the future.”
Source: Mashable India
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