WhatsApp privacy policy: SC's constitution bench to hear matter today

A constitution bench of the Supreme Court will hear instant messaging application WhatsApp's privacy policy matter on Tuesday.

After referring the matter to a constitution bench, the SC bench of Chief Justice JS Khehar and Justice DY Chandrachud said the parties should appear before the Constitution Bench and formulate issues to be taken up for the hearing.

Earlier, the apex court had sought responses Centre and telecom regulator TRAI on a plea that privacy of over 157 million Indians has been infringed by social networking sites - WhatsApp and Facebook - for alleged commercial use of personal communication.

When a new privacy policy came into effect, the Delhi High Court had restrained the instant messaging app from sharing user's information from Facebook up to September  25, 2016. 

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The High Court, in its verdict in September 2016 had directed WhatsApp to delete the information/data of persons who opted out of the service before September 25, 2016, and not to share it with social networking site Facebook or its group companies.

The high court had also directed the Centre and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to examine the feasibility of bringing the functioning of internet messaging applications like WhatsApp under the statutory regulatory framework.

WhatsApp had earlier informed the high court that when a user account was deleted, the information of that person was no longer retained on its servers.

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