Compliant with RBI’s data norms: WhatsApp

Facebook-owned WhatsApp has told the Supreme Court that it is now in full compliance with data localisation norms of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) after the messaging applications’ payment business has been stuck in trial stage for over two years.
WhatsApp, which has over 400 million monthly active users in India, told the apex court in its response that it has now “localised five data elements” that were identified by the banking regulator and mandated them to store in India only.
WhatsApp’s response noted it spent “significant engineering time and effort” over the last seven months to comply with RBI guidelines, according to documents reviewed by TOI. “An independent third-party auditor, certified by CERT-in (the government agency under the IT ministry), has confirmed that WhatsApp’s payments feature satisfies the data localisation requirements under the RBI circular and frequently asked questions (FAQs),” the Menlo Park-based company said.