In a new affidavit filed with the Delhi High Court, the government of India has claimed that WhatsApp used "trick consent" for its privacy policy by indulging in "anti-user" practices.
The government has been accusing WhatsApp of forcing users to accept its privacy policy as the government prepares legislation called the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill.
The bill is expected to come with a data-localisation provision that will require all foreign companies to install their servers within India to store the data collected from Indian nationals. The bill was presented before parliament by India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in December 2019.
As of March 2020, the draft had been analysed by a Joint Parliamentary Committee in consultation with experts and stakeholders. So far, it remains unclear when the bill will come into force.
Indian authorities have been advising WhatsApp to roll back its privacy policy or change its mandatory nature.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) earlier told the Delhi High Court that WhatsApp's privacy policy would result in excessive data collection and "stalking" of users over advertising purposes.
The government has since urged the High Court to issue an interim direction to WhatsApp asking it to desist from any "push notifications" to users concerning its privacy policy. The government demanded that WhatsApp must reveal, on record, the number of times such notifications are being pushed daily and their conversion rates, ANI added.
— ANI (@ANI) June 3, 2021
In May, WhatsApp had told the Delhi High Court that it is continuing its efforts to get users to agree with its privacy policy, yet if the users do not agree with the platform's terms, the company will gradually begin to delete their accounts.
