WhatsApp data: SC gives RBI 6 weeks

BENGALURU: The Supreme Court (SC) has granted six weeks to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to file a compliance affidavit for WhatsApp’s data localisation in the country. This comes after Kapil Sibal, senior advocate for WhatsApp, told the SC on Friday that the Facebook-owned messaging platform is compliant with data-localisation norms and that it would submit the final report to the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and the RBI.
The apex court has also asked the government to clarify WhatsApp’s stand on having a grievance officer in India, a person present in the court proceedings told TOI. As of now, WhatsApp’s grievance officer is based out of the US.
Earlier in the year, the Centre for Accountability and Systemic Change (CASC) — a non-profit organisation — had filed a petition in the SC, challenging WhatsApp’s compliance standards and absence of a local grievance officer here. Owing to the same, the apex court has now asked the RBI to submit the report.