WhatsApp on Friday accepted that “the government is the administrator” in its case and informed the Delhi High Court that it will put its privacy policy update “on hold” until the Data Protection Bill came into force.

This is a significant development after the new Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw made it crystal clear within minutes of taking charge that the “law of the land is supreme” and no one can afford to disrespect it.

• WhatsApp’s counsel also accepted that its commitment is “we need to fit in the law”.
• Senior advocate Harish Salve, representing WhatsApp, submitted before a bench comprising Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh, “We will not enforce it until the Data Protection Bill will come out. In our case the government is the administrator of the rules…, we will wait till the Bill.”

Salve also informed that the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) has communicated to WhatsApp that it feels that its privacy policy is against the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information), Rules 2011.

He added that his client replied to the ministry’s notice that WhatsApp will not limit functionality for some time and continue to show users the updated version. “We will maintain this approach until the Data Protection Bill comes into force. We have voluntarily agreed to put the update on hold till then,” submitted Salve.

He further added that if the Bill is enforced at a later stage, WhatsApp will conform to the parliamentary law. “If Parliament allows me to do it, I’ll do it. Otherwise, I won’t do it… The commitment is that I’ll not do anything if the parliamentary law comes…we need to fit in the law,” he said.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing Facebook, raised questions on the jurisdiction of the Competition Commission of India to initiate inquiry while exercising suo moto powers. He added that the top court is already examining the 2016 policy, and there are three matters pending in the High Court.

In June, the Delhi High Court refused to stay a notice issued by the Competition Commission of India (CCI), asking WhatsApp to furnish certain information in connection with the probe, ordered in March, on the instant messaging app’s new updated privacy policy.

A vacation bench of Justices Anup J. Bhambhani and Jasmeet Singh had said, “We do not consider it appropriate to stay the operation of impugned notice dated June 4, 2021, at this stage.”

The company of the instant messaging app had argued that the notices “smacked of overreach” since the information it was seeking was already pending before a different bench of the same court. It also reminded the court that related challenges were still pending before both the Supreme Court and itself.

The bench noted that Additional Solicitor General Aman Lekhi has “fairly” stated June 4, notice, CCI seeking more information about the privacy policy, was perfectly in line with the procedure contemplated under the statute for taking forward an on-going investigation.

In May, the court had issued a notice in the appeals filed by WhatsApp and Facebook challenging a single judge order refusing to set aside the CCI probe into the messaging platform’s privacy policy.

WhatsApp’s new privacy policy was to have come into effect in early February.

However, faced with massive backlash from users concerned over potential violation of their privacy and sharing of data with Facebook (concerns that prompted the government to intervene), the rollout was delayed till May 15, and then pushed back once more a week before that deadline.

At the time WhatsApp said that although a “majority of users who have received the new terms of service have accepted them”, it would not delete the accounts of those who were still holding out.

Last month, the Centre told the Delhi High Court that WhatsApp was trying to “force” users into accepting the new policy before the Personal Data Protection Bill becomes the law.

(With inputs from IANS)