Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology(Meity) to the CEO (Global) of WhatsApp, Will Cathcart to withdraw the proposedchanges to be made in the privacy policy of WhatsApp.
The ministry has asked for responses from WhatsApp on privacy,data sharing practices among other aspects. Earlier, Will Cathcart had clarified the privacy concerns in a tweet thread.
Amid concerns that WhatsApp will now share the metadataof its users' chats with Business accounts with Facebook and other companies, theministry has asked how the changes are going to affect the users.
MEITY has objected to WhatsApp policy where it doesn'tprovide a choice to the customer in which they can opt out of such a deal ontheir privacy. The MEITY has cited Puttaswamy vs the Union of India (2017)judgment regarding the privacy and consent as laid down by the apex court.
The ministry has also asked the company as to why itbrought significant changes in its privacy policy when the government in Indiais in the process of bringing personal data protection law.
The ministry has also asked WhatsApp about the differentpolicies for Europe and India and has posed 14 questions. Some of the questionsthat MEITY has asked include questions such as disclosing the exact amount ofdata collected by WhatsApp, details about permissions or user consent beforedata collection among others.