New Delhi: The Supreme Court reprimanded Meta over WhatsApp’s privacy policy. The Chief Justice-led bench today slammed the US tech giant, saying, “You cannot play with privacy… We will not allow you to share even a single digit of our information. We will not stand for the exploitation of Indians.”
On this day, the court heard the case related to WhatsApp’s 2021 privacy policy. The Company Law Tribunal upheld the Rs 213 crore fine imposed by the Competition Commission of India. Incidentally, there was a counter-appeal by the CCI regarding the sharing of user data for advertising purposes. The tribunal allowed the move after ruling that there was no ‘abuse of power’ by the company. Appearing for the government in the case, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta criticized the “exploitative” policy of sharing user data for commercial purposes. In view of this, the Chief Justice said, “If you cannot follow our constitution, then leave India. We will not allow privacy of citizens to be violated.”
The court made specific observations about the privacy policy, including asking whether the country’s millions of poor and illiterate people could understand it. “… a poor woman, or a street vendor, or anyone who speaks only Tamil… will they understand? Sometimes we too find it difficult to understand your policies…. How will people living in rural Bihar understand them? This is a way to steal personal information. We will not allow it,” the court observed. The Chief Justice then cited his own experience as a benchmark. “If a message is sent to a doctor on WhatsApp… that the body is feeling bad… and the doctor sends a prescription for some medicine, then immediately start seeing ads…” Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi and senior advocate Akhil Sibal, appearing for Meta and WhatsApp, countered that all messages are ‘end-to-end encrypted’, meaning even the company cannot see the content.
What is the case?
In November 2024, the CCI ruled on the 2021 Privacy Update that, due to its dominant position in the market, WhatsApp was forcing its users to adopt the new policy. WhatsApp users were told to allow data sharing with other meta platforms in order to continue accessing the messaging service. CCI objected to this. Due to this, a fine of 213 crore rupees was imposed. Which Rohatgi and Sibal told the court today that submissions have been made. The guidelines were challenged by Meta and WhatsApp in January 2025. In November 2025, the law tribunal suspended WhatsApp’s five-year ban on data sharing, although fines were upheld.