HC judge recuses from hearing PIL against WhatsApp privacy policy
By MYBRANDBOOK
A Delhi High Court judge Justice Prathiba M Singh of the Delhi High Court has recused from hearing the PIL against WhatsApp's new privacy policy, which will now be assigned for hearing on January 18 before another bench by the court's Chief Justice.
Before recusing, Justice Prathiba M Singh objected to the mail sent to her office by WhatsApp. The mail had requested her not to hear the case as she had appeared in a connected case as a lawyer a few years back. Although WhatsApp unconditionally withdrew the email later, the judge decided to not hear the case despite Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Chetan Sharma's request, who urged her to hear the "important issue of law" which affected the public.
The PIL filed by Chaitanya Rohilla has objected to various aspects of WhatsApp's new privacy policy; be it device and connection information, location information and interface with third-party services and service providers. It has objected to the new regime where WhatsApp will share information globally, both internally within the Facebook companies and externally with its partners and service providers.
As per the new policy, WhatsApp can transfer, transmit, store or process information in the United States or any other country or territory where the Facebook Companies’ affiliates and partners are located. The petition claims that WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy, which was made known on January 4 this year, essentially takes away the choice users had till now to not share their data with other Facebook-owned and third-party apps. WhatsApp had made it mandatory for its users to accept the new policy by February 8 or else the services and accounts of the respective users would be terminated.
The petitioner fears that the new regime will integrate Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram to give a 360-degree profile into a person's online activity, with a high level of insight into a person's private and personal activities without any government oversight and in the absence of a data protection authority.
On July 10 last year, the Supreme Court of India had allowed serving legal summons to citizens via WhatsApp. Citing extensive use of the app, the petition has contended that WhatsApp is discharging public functions despite being a private entity, and "cannot be allowed to go berserk at its whims".
The petition has also pointed to the disparity in the updated privacy policy, which won't apply to the European Region since there's already a data protection law in place out there. WhatsApp is barred from sharing data with Facebook in the European Region as it contravenes the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which deals with data protection and privacy in the European Union and the European Economic Area.
The petitioner alleges that WhatsApp and Facebook are trying to arbitrarily try to enforce their policy in India as they see vulnerability in the absence of any comprehensive law in this domain.
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