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Collin Furtado · · 1 min readIndian gov’t reportedly asks WhatsApp to withdraw new privacy policy for users
In a letter addressed to WhatsApp global CEO Will Cathcart, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology detailed concerns about how the new policy poses risks to the security of users’ information, said the report.
The Indian government objected to WhatsApp’s “all-or-nothing approach,” which forces users to accept the new terms without giving them the chance to opt out, the sources said.
This is the latest setback for the Facebook-owned company in its biggest market. Late last week, WhatsApp announced that it was delaying its new privacy policy update to May 2021 after receiving severe criticism from users. It also faces a legal challenge with a petition filed in an Indian court over the policy.
WhatsApp said on January 4 that it reserves the right to share information about its users with its parent company, as well as with Instagram and Messenger. It then gave its users a February 8 deadline to agree to the new privacy rules.
Meanwhile, rival apps such as Signal and Telegram are seeing an increasing number of users as WhatsApp implements new terms in India and Hong Kong, among other markets. Turkey’s Competition Board has also launched an investigation into Facebook and WhatsApp and suspended the platforms’ new data-sharing rules.
Editing by Eileen C. Ang
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