The Rights of the Deceased: Moral Rights Incidental to Copyright Law
- Vanshika Agrawal
- 2024-04-25
Contents hide
1 Why India needs strong private policy laws after WhatsApp’s Policy Changes
2 What does WhatsApp’s new data policy entail?
4 How are the privacy and policy experts seeing this whole situation?
5 Is India’s Data Policy Protection Bill strong enough to protect data policy?
6 Recent developments on the policy and statement issued by WhatsApp
7 How does the new policy update safeguard our privacy according to WhatsApp?
8 Personal Data Protection in India / Conclusion
Why India Needs Strong Private Policy – Social media giant – WhatsApp recently announced its new data policy, essentially taking away the choices users have of whether or not they wish to share their data with other Facebook-owned apps. The policy is set to hugely accommodate the interest of ad runners and other businesses. While personal chats remain encrypted, the other changes seen in the policy allow a fair deal of data transfer across the group.
Practically, the whole world is using one of the many social media platforms owned by Facebook, mainly WhatsApp. India is the largest user base for WhatsApp around about 200 million users. India is sad, between the devil and the deep sea, the reason is, India’s data protection policy, and laws do not support individual privacy policy at large.
This move has created a ruckus in the data privacy, cybersecurity, anti-trust, and cybersecurity advocates, who have long warned against data pooling among big tech companies and election campaigns.
As WhatsApp commerce remains its biggest bet in the country, Facebook has time and again seen India as its biggest market for product innovation and investments.
Why India Needs Strong Private Policy – WhatsApp is bound by law to not share data with Facebook in the European region because it is a contravention of the previous GDPR act. This European regulation in the European Union law on data protection and privacy in the EU with its stringent framework helps avoid a breach of public data.
In the year 2017, the French[ii] data agency said, WhatsApp does not hold legal privileges to share user data under French law.
Union IT Minister, Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad[iv] said that the ministry of electronics and information [Meity] has finalized the much-anticipated personal data protection bill and the next required step is a cabinet approval before the bill goes to the parliament.
Data Protection Bill, which is currently before a parliamentary committee. To examine some of its clauses to put curbs on the transfer of personal data outside the country. Which may come in as a conflict with WhatsApp’s new privacy policy. The pressure is stepping up on the social media giant to store locally. Especially the payments related to data as there is an enormous need in India for Data Protection.
According to sources present in the government, the bill may draft afresh to build safeguards against such practices. Experts are of the opinion that the government will need to tackle the issues. Emanating from this, very carefully in order to give full security benefits to the servers.
India’s lack of a data protection law and the absence of data protection need to be formed at the earliest.
With rising concern over the WhatsApp policy changes. WhatsApp issued a written assurance. Saying that their latest policy changes do not affect the privacy of messages on the platform.
WhatsApp issued a statement saying, “We want to be clear that the policy update does not affect the privacy of your message with friends or family in any way. Instead, this update included changes related to messaging a business on WhatsApp, which is optional, and provides further transparency about how we collect and use data”
1. WhatsApp cannot see your personal messages or hear your calls and neither can Facebook.
2. WhatsApp does not keep logs of who everyone is messaging or calling.
3. WhatsApp can’t see your shared location and neither can Facebook.
4. WhatsApp does not share your contacts with Facebook.
5. Groups remain private.
6. Users can download their data.
At the moment, India does not have specific legislation enacted primarily for data protection. In addition, we have personal data covered under article 21 of the Indian Constitution. Which guarantees to every citizen, the right to privacy as a fundamental right.
In India, Personal data protected through indirect safeguards developed by the courts for the landmark case of Justice K.S. Puttaswani and another v/s Union of India.
‘Prevention is better than Cure’
A take it or leave it attitude imposed by the big tech like WhatsApp is not going to serve any purpose. Violation to users rights especially related to policy is a punishable offence in the eyes of law.
As noted from India’s perspective, a strong and ethical data protection and privacy law is the need of the hour.
[i] Nandani James, WhatsApp’s new privacy policy: Yet another reason why India needs data protection law, THEHINDUBUSINESSLINE.COM [ January 10TH 2021 ] https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/info-tech/whatsapps-new-privacy-policy-yet-another-reason-why-india-needs-data-protection-law/article33542521.ece
[ii]Megha Mandavia, WhatsApp tweaks privacy policy to share more user data with Facebook, THE ECONOMIC TIMES. [ January 8th 2021, 3:54 IST] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/whatsapp-tweaks-privacy-policy-to-share-more-user-data-with-facebook/articleshow/80144280.cms
[iii]Romita Majumdar, Why India’s Industry And Privacy Experts Are Worried About WhatsApp’s New Privacy Policy? InC42.com. [ January 7th 2021] https://inc42.com/features/why-industry-and-privacy-experts-are-worried-about-whatsapps-new-privacy-policy/
[iv]IANS, WhatsApp case proves India needs strong data protection law: Expert, NATIONAL HERALD, 27th June 2019, 9:30 pm https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/national/whatsapp-case-proves-india-needs-strong-data-protection-law-expert
Drop your comment