Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) to the CEO (Global) of WhatsApp, Will Cathcart to withdraw the proposed changes to be made in the privacy policy of WhatsApp.
The ministry has asked for responses from WhatsApp on privacy,
data sharing practices among other aspects. Earlier, Will Cathcart had clarified the privacy concerns in a tweet thread.
I've been watching a bunch of discussion this week about the privacy policy update we’re in the process of making @WhatsApp and wanted to share some thoughts.
— Will Cathcart (@wcathcart) January 8, 2021
Thread 👇
Amid concerns that WhatsApp will now share the metadata of its users' chats with Business accounts with Facebook and other companies, the ministry has asked how the changes are going to affect the users.
MEITY has objected to WhatsApp policy where it doesn't provide a choice to the customer in which they can opt out of such a deal on their privacy. The MEITY has cited Puttaswamy vs the Union of India (2017) judgment regarding the privacy and consent as laid down by the apex court.
The ministry has also asked the company as to why it brought significant changes in its privacy policy when the government in India is in the process of bringing personal data protection law.
The ministry has also asked WhatsApp about the different policies for Europe and India and has posed 14 questions. Some of the questions that MEITY has asked include questions such as disclosing the exact amount of data collected by WhatsApp, details about permissions or user consent before data collection among others.
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