New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Wednesday, March 30 raised concerns over the alleged sharing of data by Facebook with other companies, and referred to the Cambridge Analytica incident, which is facing probe for allegedly illegally harvesting data of Facebook users.
“Sharing of data, scrapping of data…someone needs to look into it. Aside this case, they say there are 5,000 data points on every citizen… They can predict what you are going to do in every situation,” the court said.
A bench of Justices Rajiv Shakdher and Poonam A. Bamba made these observations while hearing appeals of Facebook and its firm WhatsApp against the single-judge order refusing to stop the competition regulator Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) from directing a probe into WhatsApp’s new privacy policy.
Senior advocate Harish Salve, representing WhatsApp, submitted that the company does not look at messages and only has external information such as phone number and volume of trade. He further said that Facebook itself states that you are putting your life in public domain.
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According to The Indian Express, in response to Salve’s statement that he gets notifications whenever a “dear friend of his” lands in Goa, the court observed, “…but from there if they predict what he is going to do in Goa is a little bit of a problem. It is what they are able to do now”.
The court adjourned the hearing after Salve submitted that since the data protection law is pending before parliament, the case could be deferred for some time.
Salve told the court that as stated by WhatsApp earlier, until the data protection law comes into existence, it will not coerce its users to opt for the updated privacy policy. He added that when the parliament is seized of the matter, there was no question of the CCI continuing with its own investigation into the policy.
“If we have the Bill (till the next date of hearing), good. Else decide it on the basis of the law as it is,” Salve said.
The CCI had on April 13, 2021 told the Delhi high court that WhatsApp’s new privacy policy would lead to excessive data collection and “stalking” of consumers for targeted advertising to bring in more users and is therefore an alleged abuse of dominant position.
WhatsApp and Facebook had challenged the CCI’s March 24, 2021, order directing a probe into the new privacy policy.
The court also extended the interim order granting time to Facebook and WhatsApp for filing replies to two CCI notices asking them to furnish certain information in connection with the matter.
The case will be heard next on July 21.
(With inputs from PTI)