{"id":65911,"date":"2026-02-04T18:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T12:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/?p=65911"},"modified":"2026-02-04T18:03:05","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T12:33:05","slug":"sc-meta-whatsapp-privacy-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/04-02-2026\/sc-meta-whatsapp-privacy-policy","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Slams Meta, WhatsApp Over Privacy Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS2\/ Governance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>In Context<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Supreme Court of India strongly cautioned WhatsApp and its parent company Meta for<strong> &#8220;surveillance capitalism&#8221; model <\/strong>and breaching the right to privacy of Indian users through data sharing and commercial exploitation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Background<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In 2021, WhatsApp updated its terms of service, mandating that users share metadata with its parent company, Meta (then Facebook).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Unlike the European Union, where the<strong> General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) <\/strong>prevented such a move, Indian users were given a<strong> &#8220;take-it-or-leave-it&#8221; ultimatum<\/strong>: accept the terms or lose access to the platform.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The<strong> Competition Commission of India (CCI) <\/strong>identified this as an <strong>Abuse of Dominant Position<\/strong> under the Competition Act, 2002.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In 2024, the CCI imposed a \u20b9213.14 crore penalty, noting that the &#8220;consent&#8221; sought was &#8220;manufactured&#8221; and forced.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Key Issues Highlighted By the SC<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Vulnerability of the Masses:<\/strong> In a country where WhatsApp has become a &#8220;digital utility&#8221; for banking, government services, and livelihood, &#8220;opting out&#8221; is often synonymous with social and economic exclusion.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Commercial Exploitation:<\/strong> Enables Meta to monetize user behavior via cross-platform ads (e.g., Instagram, Facebook), turning users into &#8220;products&#8221; without revenue share.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Even if a message is end-to-end encrypted, the behavioral metadata (the &#8220;silos of data&#8221;) has immense market value.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Lack of Clarity:<\/strong> Dense legal jargon inaccessible to rural\/poor users, as SC noted\u2014e.g., a Tamil Nadu vendor can&#8217;t navigate English terms.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Asymmetry of Power: <\/strong>The court observed that the platform capitalizes on the &#8220;addiction&#8221; of consumers, turning them from users into &#8220;products&#8221; without their informed consent.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The Gap in the DPDP Act (2023):<\/strong> While the Digital Personal Data Protection Act addresses the right to be forgotten and data processing limits, the SC noted it lacks provisions for &#8220;rent-sharing&#8221;.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The SC asked the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to compare the DPDP Act with the EU\u2019s Digital Services Act (DSA).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-background\" style=\"background-color:#ebecf0\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>India&#8217;s Data Protection Framework<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Right to Privacy as a Fundamental Right: <\/strong>In Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), the Supreme Court recognised Right to Privacy as a fundamental right under Article 21 &amp; linked privacy to dignity, autonomy and liberty.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee (2017):<\/strong> It was constituted after the Puttaswamy judgment. It recommended treat companies as data fiduciaries, strong safeguards against power asymmetry<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023:<\/strong> India\u2019s first comprehensive law on digital personal data.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Key provisions include consent-based data processing, purpose limitation and data minimisation &amp; establishes Data Protection Board of India for enforcement.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>However SC slammed that this mainly focuses on privacy protection but does not address economic value of data or compensation for data monetisation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Competition Commission of India (CCI)<\/strong>: Recognised misuse of data as a form of abuse of dominant position.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/supreme-court-objects-to-whatsapp-metas-take-it-or-leave-it-privacy-policy\/article70586358.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>TH<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong> In Context <\/strong><\/p>\n<li class=\"ms-5\"> The Supreme Court of India strongly cautioned WhatsApp and its parent company Meta for &#8220;surveillance capitalism&#8221; model and breaching the right to privacy of Indian users through data sharing and commercial exploitation. <\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong> Background <\/strong><\/p>\n<li class=\"ms-5\"> In 2021, WhatsApp updated its terms of service, mandating that users share metadata with its parent company, Meta (then Facebook). <\/li>\n<li class=\"ms-5\"> Unlike the European Union, where the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) prevented such a move, Indian users were given a &#8220;take-it-or-leave-it&#8221; ultimatum: accept the terms or lose access to the platform. <\/li>\n<li class=\"ms-5\"> The Competition Commission of India (CCI) identified this as an Abuse of Dominant Position under the Competition Act, 2002.\u00a0 <\/li>\n<p><a href=\" https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/04-02-2026\/sc-meta-whatsapp-privacy-policy \" class=\"btn btn-primary btn-sm float-end\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65911"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65913,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65911\/revisions\/65913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}