WhatsApp privacy policy update: The Indian government has asked WhatsApp to withdraw its controversial new privacy policy update. The Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has sent a strongly worded letter to the CEO of WhatsApp, Will Cathcart, asking the Facebook-owned corporation to withdraw its unilateral privacy policy adjustments calling them unfair and unacceptable.
The ministry stated that Indians really should be correctly respected, maintaining in thoughts that India is house to the biggest user base for WhatsApp. The ministry also stated that the new terms of service and privacy policy brought in by the platform are a lead to of grave concern relating to the implications for selection as properly as autonomy of the customers in India.
The ministry, when searching for a withdrawal of these policy adjustments, also told WhatsApp to rethink its stance on information safety, details privacy and freedom of selection.
WhatsApp has been below fire for the previous couple of weeks more than its updated privacy policy and terms of service, which created a case for sharing more user details with its parent corporation Facebook. The update, which was sent to Android and iOS customers planet more than, left the customers with no selection but to accept them if they wanted to continue making use of the platform. This led to many business leaders which includes tech entrepreneur Elon Musk and Indian organization tycoon Anand Mahindra to make a case for shifting to option platforms.
Amid the enormous outrage, traders body CAIT also wrote to the Union IT Ministry searching for a restriction on WhatsApp implementing this policy, or a ban on Facebook and WhatsApp. This, along with mass public complaints, led the ministry to appear into the new terms of service and privacy policy in detail and hold internal discussion to assess whether or not the policy was violating the present legal framework in the nation.
WhatsApp has issued clarifications stating that the new policy would not influence the person chats in any way and would only lead to organization accounts on WhatsApp sharing more information with Facebook. It also stated that it was committed to user privacy, one thing even Facebook has asserted each time it came below fire for user privacy violation. Even although the platform asserted that all of the private group and person chats and calls would stay protected by the finish-to-finish encryption technologies, it did small to pacify customers, who have been shifting to option platforms like Telegram and Signal in enormous numbers.
The outrage and mass shifting of customers nevertheless carried on even although the platform delayed the implementation of the new policy from February to May.
Now, it appears that WhatsApp could possibly have to implement a Europe-like exemption from this policy for Indian customers if the government is committed to making certain that WhatsApp backs out of this update. Notably, customers in Europe are not covered below this new policy.