A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Justice KM Joseph of the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed WhatsApp to widely publicise its undertaking given to the Centre in 2021 stand its users in India do not have to accept its 2021 privacy policy in order to use it. The Bench asked WhatsApp to give advertisement in five newspapers to publicise its undertaking given to the government.

5 Judges bench of Justices KM Joseph, Ajay Rastogi, Aniruddha Bose, Hrishikesh Roy, and CT Ravikumar recorded the submission of the whats app that they will abide by the terms of the letter to the government.

The bench said, "We record the stand taken in the letter (to the government) and we record the submission of the senior counsel for WhatsApp that they will abide by the terms of the letter... till the next date of hearing. We further direct that WhatsApp will give publicity to this aspect to the customers of WhatsApp in five national newspapers on two occasions."

The bench is hearing a petition filed by 2 students namely Karmanya Singh Sareen and Shreya Sethi, challenging WhatsApp's 2021 Privacy Policy to share users' data with parent company Facebook and others is a violation of their privacy and free speech.

The Supreme court has posted the case for hearing on April 11.

Case Details:-

SLP(C) No. 804/2017

KARMANYA SINGH SAREEN AND ANR.
Vs.
Union of India