The controversy isn’t going to end soon for WhatsApp. Now the Indian Supreme Court has issued a notice over its new privacy policy.
According to The Independent, Indian Supreme Court recently issued a notice to WhatsApp over its recent privacy policy changes. Facebook owns the popular messaging app platform.
WhatsApp and its growing troubles
Apex court of India issued a notice to the messaging platform after introducing new privacy policy changes. After the changes, registered WhatsApp users will be forced to share extra chat data with third-party services.
Taking this into consideration, the Supreme Court of India, in its notice, said:
“People value their privacy more than the value of the company, which might be in the trillions.”
“People have grave apprehension that they will lose their privacy, and it is our duty to protect them.”
Last month WhatsApp tried to address the serious concerns. In its response, in January, the platform said that it would ensure end-to-end encryption just like in the past. And despite the new policy, users won’t face any harm of losing their data.
“WhatsApp cannot see your private messages or hear your calls, and neither can Facebook… Our privacy policy update does not affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family.”
The problem seems to be getting bigger and bigger, however, with each day for the app. No matter what clarifications it keeps giving, people will find it difficult to believe its words because the circumstances are not going in favor of the most popular chat app in the world at the moment.
Issue of privacy becoming severe
Since last year, there has been a rising awareness among people regarding their data security. It wasn’t the case a few years ago, however. But everything began to change when Apple came out with its privacy-based iOS 14 software. Although it faced a lot of resistance from many other tech firms, including Facebook, eventually, it gained massive support.
As a result, users of various social media apps started thinking about becoming vulnerable to multiple trackers online. They also began questioning the features and options found in the services like Facebook and its other platforms like WhatsApp.
And when WhatsApp did bring a recent privacy-based change at the end of 2020, everyone was shocked because the new changes meant a lot of personal user data exposure to third-party platforms. Especially those dealing in ads.
Registered app users didn’t like this policy and ultimately decided to move to new alternatives. Currently, Signal and Telegram are among the top contenders that are rapidly gaining new members.
Image courtesy of Hayls World/YouTube Screenshot