"Direct Whatsapp to roll back updated privacy policy:" Plea in Supreme Court raises data sharing concern by Whatsapp, Facebook

Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has moved the Supreme Court in an Article 32 petition seeking directions to Whatsapp to roll back its privacy policy and frame guidelines to govern data sharing undertaken by Facebook and Whatsapp..The trader association in its petition filed through Supreme Court lawyer, Vivek Narayan Sharma has stated that the Centre has failed to discharge its constitutional duty and responsibility to by protecting the privacy rights of citizens forcing the petitioner to approach the top court. ."Centre failed to impose necessary and restrictive conditions in the instant case, though on the proposed policy of Whatsapp, European Union’s Antitrust Authority had imposed serious restrictions and fine of 110 million euros in 2017," says the plea. .The recent move by Whatsapp to update its privacy policy has raised great consternation among users with many people exploring alternative messaging services. .The plea avers that in 2016, Germany, United Kingdom and entire European Union had prohibited similar action of Facebook which was also asked to delete all the data relating to Whatsapp users..Substantiating its case for a roll back on Whatsapp's privacy policy, the plea states that the updated privacy policy would adversely impact citizens’ fundamental right of privacy and the same is also fundamentally opposed to their representation in the beginning, when people started to opt for using Whatsapp on the basis of privacy policy..Due to this updated policy, the users will now have to compulsorily share all the information that WhatsApp collects, which includes information about the user’s activity on their services, like service-related, diagnostic, and performance information, it has been contended. .It has further been submitted that technology giants which deal with such data must have a "fiduciary duty to ensure that the information they so possess and collect from citizens and business must be safe and not used for their own commercial gains without the consent of the users.".CAIT has also alleged that citizen’s personal data is being collected by a foreign entity and is being transferred outside the country.The petitioner has, therefore, prayed for a direction to be issued to the Union of India so that Whatsapp is prohibited from sharing details of its subscribers with Facebook..It also seeks to frame guidelines so as to regulate the functioning of Facebook, Whatsapp and other similarly placed internet based messaging services..Recently, another similar plea was filed before the Delhi High Court challenging the updated privacy policy of WhatsApp. However, when that petition came up for hearing on Friday, Justice Prathiba Singh who was on the Bench recused from hearing the case.