The Delhi High Court recently directed all major social media platforms including Meta and Google to furnish details of their standard operating procedure for dealing with requests for information from law enforcement agencies [Shabana vs. Government of NCT of Delhi & Ors.].
A Division Bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Amit Sharma observed that there is often a time lag between the seeking of information by police and receipt of the such information from social media platforms, during efforts to trace missing persons.
“In order to ensure that such delay and lag does not impede the process of tracing out missing persons who are sometimes even children and minors, it is necessary that proper timelines ought to be adhered to by the concerned online platforms and their concerned officials. It is also necessary that the IOs are also properly acclimatised to the manner in which requests ought to be posted, how the portal is to be monitored and immediately upon receipt how the same is to be downloaded from these platforms,” the Court said.
Consequently, the Court directed social media platforms - Google, Meta, Whatsapp, Telegram, Linkedin, Twitter and Reddit, to place on record its standard operating protocol for dealing with requests for information from law enforcement agencies, including the timeline for providing such information.
The Delhi Police was also directed to hold a meeting and place a note before the Court on any challenges that they are facing and any training that may be required for police officials.
The Court took note of these issues while hearing a habeaus corpus writ petition filed by the parents of a missing boy.
The Delhi Police had submitted that on receiving a tip, it had written to Meta to furnish information on the missing boy’s Instagram account, phone number, location/IP address, and the IMEI of the device being used. However, Meta did not supply the information.
The Court, therefore, issued notice to Meta and sought its assistance. Advocate Tejas Karia appeared for Meta and informed the Court that the said information was uploaded on the platform which is used by law enforcement agencies to communicate with Meta.
He further submitted that Meta conducts training programmes with law enforcement agencies on how to access such information through the portal.
The Court observed that the issues flagged in this case (regarding the delay in accessing such information) has been noticed in other cases as well. Therefore, it has sought a response from all prominent social media entities on how such information is usually provided by them on requests by law enforcement officials.
The matter will be heard next on October 8.
Standing Counsel Sanjay Lao, with Advocate Priyam Aggarwal appeared for the State
Advocates Tejas Karia and Varun Pathak represented Meta.
Advocate Swati Agarwal appeared for WhatsApp.
[Read Order]