Facebook is looking like one of those fantasy creatures with disjoint shapes where nothing is what it appears to be. Mark Zuckerberg in an interview in 2011 said “so the question isn’t what do we want to know about people, it’s what do people want to tell about themselves. Right ?”. And this line sums up the whole new Facebook-owned WhatsApp privacy policy.
The new whatsapp privacy policy gives no opportunity to the users for any sought of a bargain it is a straight my way or highway type policy so either you accept it or you stop using WhatsApp. The new policy explicitly said that it will share the information with Facebook and other Facebook-owned company for the improvement of their service .
MYTH AND SPECULATION
But before going any further in this issue it is necessary to answer the myth and speculation that are floating around. The speculation floating around is that WhatsApp will share your chats with Facebook but this is not the case there is no change in the policy of end to end encryption WhatsApp will not store your message in its server. The next piece of information that is floating around is that WhatsApp now owns the content, media files that I’ve shared on the app but this is also a frivolous claim as the content you share is the parts of the chats and that is also the ehttps://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/answering-your-questions-about-whatsapps-privacy-policynd to end encrypted this is not stored in any server . Also, people speculated that like other platforms WhatsApp will show ads based on our chats but this claim is also frivolous as WhatsApp will remain an ad-free messaging service.
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM
So the question stands so is there anything that we should be worried about the answer is yes because WhatsApp will share your account information (your name and number), Connection status (battery level, signal strength, IP address, browser information), payment information( done through WhatsApp pay) and most important cookies for a web-based application. The point made by Whatsapp was that this information will be helpful to improve our services but the point remains to improve the service quality of WhatsApp why are you sharing this information with Facebook and Facebook-owned company and the next point is that WhatsApp should explain how this data will be processed and used to improve the services. WhatsApp after backlash from netizens has rolled out a clarification in which it has said that it will not take your location information when you share it in Whatsapp but the actual policy had that so it is still hard to believe that Whatsapp will remain on this stand our in future it will turn it’s back.
WHAT CAN WE DO
There is an interesting twist in this story this policy will not apply to European Union countries as the GDPR(General Data Protection Regulation) does not allow such sought of data sharing. Now the question arises that can India too prohibit this policy like the European union the answer is yes and no and the answer to the Yes and No lies in the Personal Data Protection bill 2019 in which section 5(2) explicitly says that personal data can be used for the purpose that is reasonably linked to the purpose for which the information was given and the WhatsApp user never gave their information to WhatsApp so that they can share it with Facebook and it’s a Facebook owned company and even if you are saying it you are using it for service improvement purpose you must give a detail explanation. But the problem is that the Personal data protection bill is struck in the Joint parliamentary committee and is not the law of the land now.
So now the question is what can be done in this issue the answer lies in IT Act 2000 in which Section 87 empower the govt to make a rule when there is any sought of arbitrary conduct form the intermediary and it is high time the govt should make powerful laws that save our right of privacy.
SUBSTITUTE THAT CAN BE RELIED UPON
But now the next set of questions arises what to do when you are not satisfied with the policy of WhatsApp because you have two options now either agree with the policy or leave WhatsApp. In case you choose to leave WhatsApp now the there are two worthy platforms you can choose first is Telegram and the second is Signal.
So what to choose the answer is simple if you love your privacy as Telegram does not give an end to end encryption unless you select the secret chats message also Telegram group are not encrypted as secret chats can be enabled only in single-user communication. Also, the Telegram desktop client does not support an end to end encryption unless you use macOS. whereas in signal there is an end to end encryption in all format also it uses an open-source signal protocol to implement this. Not just data Signal also protect your metadata too which is generally taken by all the other apps.
WhatsApp generally collects 16 types of data (Device ID, User ID, Advertising Data, Purchase History, Coarse Location, Phone Number, Email Address, Contacts, Product Interaction, Crash Data, Performance Data, Other Diagnostic Data, Payment Info, Customer Support, Product Interaction, Other User Content) and Telegram collect 3 types of data(Contact info, Contacts, User id) but the Signal on the other hands just store your phone number so it is evident that signal is far better than other messaging platforms in the criteria of privacy .
But just shifting is the key to solution the answer is no because this tech giant knows that their apps are the new oxygen of this digital world and this gives this tech giant immense negotiating power so they can even manipulate to govt to form a policy that favors there will. So rather than switching from one platform to another use your power of dissent and make the policymaker and the tech giant realize your power and at last, it’s your data and you should decide its fate.
This Article is written by RITIK KUMAR RATH, 3rd Year Law Student at National Law Institute University, Bhopal.
