NEW DELHI: The Central government on Thursday assured the Supreme Court that it is firm on protecting an individual’s freedom of choice and is working on a regime for data protection for every person.
Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing on behalf of the government, informed an apex court Bench that, “Freedom of choice needs to be protected and we are coming out with a regulatory regime on data protection. We stand by privacy and freedom of choice.”
The Centre’s response came when the five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra was hearing the WhatsApp privacy policy matter.
Appearing for petitioners Karmanya Singh Sareen and Shreya Sethi, senior advocate Harish Salve said, “The changes in the user policy now allow it to retain any videos, picture etc which are widely circulated. This means they are snooping and picking up data and they share user info with Facebook, which is unfair.”
Salve clarified that, “Privacy in this context means confidentiality as regards an agreement with a private party and it should not be confused with the right to privacy as in the case of Aadhaar.”
“Whether article 21 read with article 14 and 19 confer upon persons right to privacy in respect of personal communication irrespective of the mode of communication,” Salve said.
Countering Salve’s submission, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for WhatsApp, said, “We are protecting privacy of users as they have an end-to-end encryption technology which cannot be looked into by a third person.”
This led Salve to question the end-to-end encryption method and he said, “I am objecting to someone looking into my messages”.
During the hearing, the Bench allowed the application of Internet Freedom Foundation, which has sought to be impleaded as a party in the matter.
“There should be a freedom to affirmative choice,” Justice Misra observed.
However, the hearing remained inconclusive and the Bench slated the case for further arguments on May 15.