NEW DELHI:The Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to refer social media platform WhatsApp’s privacy policy matter to a Constitution Bench, which will hear the issue on April 18, saying it concerns the larger issue of privacy and right to personal liberty.
The main privacy issue for users was that those who had signed up with WhatsApp with its own user contract will then have to agree with all the policies of Facebook as well, following their merger.
A Bench of CJI J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud said the parties should appear before the Constitution Bench and formulate issues to be taken up for the hearing. The CJI had earlier fixed the case for one of the three Constitution Benches scheduled to sit during the summer vacation, starting from May 11.
Earlier this year, the court had sought responses from the Centre and telecom regulator TRAI on a plea that privacy of over 157 million Indians has been infringed by social networking sites — WhatsApp and Facebook — for alleged commercial use of personal communication.
The court was hearing a petition by two students — Karmanya Singh Sareen and Shreya Sethi — who through their counsel argued that the matter affects people at large and is an issue related to Article 21 as well as Article 19(1)(a) where the right to privacy is contended to be encompassed as the private communication of a person, which needs to be secured.
The Delhi High Court had earlier restrained WhatsApp, an instant messaging application, from sharing with Facebook user information existing up to September 25, 2016, when its new privacy policy came into effect.