SC orders Whatsapp to make public its undertaking on 2021 privacy policy

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed WhatsApp to inform Indian users at large that they needn’t accept the the platform’s 2021 privacy policy in order to be able to use it.

“WhatsApp’s functionality would remain unaffected till the Data Protection Bill comes into existence,” the court said.

In a letter written to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on May 22, 2021, WhatsApp had said its users in India who have not yet accepted its latest privacy policy (made that year), would not face any disruptions while using the application.

The Bench directed WhatsApp to issue, on two separate occasions, a full-page advertisement containing the details of this undertaking, in five national newspapers.