Indian govt asks Delhi HC to restrain WhatsApp from implementing new privacy policy

The Indian government has also asked WhatsApp to review the proposed privacy policy changes.

WhatsApp has been severely criticised for the new privacy policy, not just in India but also globally. (Pixabay)

The central government has asked the Delhi High Court to restrain WhatsApp from implementing its new privacy policy and terms of service. This information comes via a tweet posted by ANI. 

The Centre urges Delhi High Court that WhatsApp may be restrained from implementing its new privacy policy

— ANI (@ANI) March 19, 2021

The government has also asked the Facebook-owned messaging platform to review the new privacy policy that it's planning to implement soon, Minister of State for IT and Communications Sanjay Dhotre informed the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

WhatsApp has been severely criticised for the new privacy policy, not just in India but also globally. WhatsApp had announced earlier in January that it plans to share data with parent company Facebook. 

Following WhatsApp's announcement, there was a huge uproar thanks to privacy concerns emerging from data sharing and many WhatsApp users chose other, more private messaging apps like Signal and Telegram, over it. 

WhatsApp tried to settle matters by saying that private chats on the platform will remain end-to-end encrypted as they always were and Facebook will have no access to it. However, chats with business accounts on WhatsApp will have data shared with the businesses concerned, Facebook and companies owned by Facebook. 

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has also made the statement in its affidavit filed in response to a petition challenging the new privacy policy of social networking platform WhatsApp, according to PTI. 

The petitioners, Seema Singh and Meghan Singh, contended that the new privacy policy indicates the "fissures" in Indian data protection and privacy laws.

Under WhatsApp's new policy, users can either accept it or exit the app. The option to not share data with Facebook or other Facebook-owned apps or third party apps does not exist.