WA trying to get ‘trick consent’: Govt

WA trying to get ‘trick consent’: Govt

Abhinav.Garg@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:04.06.2021

In a fresh salvo against Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp, the Centre has accused it of indulging in “anti-user practices” by trying to obtain “trick consent” for its contested privacy policy.

“Millions of existing users of WhatsApp, who have not accepted its new policy, are bombarded with notifications on an everyday basis,” the Centre told the Delhi high court in an affidavit, blaming the social messaging platform of trying to “force” its users to provide consent to the new privacy policy before the Personal Data Protection Bill becomes a law.

For this, the platform has “unleashed its digital prowess on unsuspecting existing users and would like to force them to accept the updated 2021 privacy policy by flashing such notifications at regular intervals”, the affidavit by the Centre said, adding that its “game plan is very clear”.

Disappearing mode in WhatsApp soon

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has told WABetaInfo, a website, that a disappearing mode is coming to WhatsApp that automatically enables ephemeral messages in new chat threads. He has mentioned that another feature ‘View Once’ will be rolled out soon.

‘How many have accepted the updated 2021 privacy policy’

The company wants to “transfer the entire existing user base committed to the updated 2021 privacy policy before the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill becomes the law”, the Centre said.

Backing a clutch of petitions challenging the platform’s revised privacy policy, the government has urged the HC to demand from it record of the number of times such notifications have been sent out till date on daily basis to users and what was the conversion rate — that is how many have accepted the updated 2021 privacy policy vis-a-vis the number of notifications.

It said WhatsApp is “currently having access to personal, sensitive and business data of hundreds of millions of Indian users and has also acquired role of an ‘essential digital service’ during Covid-19 pandemic” which is why its privacy policy and terms of service “should be examined on the touchstone of privacy principles as laid down in K S Puttaswamy judgment of the Supreme Court.”

The affidavit also informs HC that the Competition Commission of India (CCI), in a recent “prima facie opinion,” said that WhatsApp contravened legal provisions “through its exploitative and exclusionary conduct, in the garb of policy update.” Centre has argued that the privacy policy of WhatsApp violates rules as it fails to specify types of sensitive personal data being collected and also fails to notify users about details of the sensitive personal information which is collected. It said even when a user deletes her account, “a substantial corpus of data may be retained.”