India’s Supreme Court to WhatsApp: ‘You can’t play with privacy’

India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a stunning censure of Meta, warning that it would not allow the social media giant to “play with the privacy rights” of Indian users, as judges questioned how WhatsApp makes personal money.

The comments were made when Meta appealed a punishment it was based on the privacy of WhatsApp for 2021. The judges repeatedly asked the company how users can clearly accept data sharing practices in the market when the program is a good communication platform.

With over 500 million active users, India is WhatsApp’s largest market and the largest growth area for Meta’s advertising business. Judges in the case questioned the commercial value of metadata generated by the platform, and how such data could generate revenue for Meta trading and AI services.

During the hearing, Chief Justice Surya Kant said the Supreme Court would not allow Meta and WhatsApp to share even “a single piece of information” while the appeal is pending, saying that users cannot really choose to accept WhatsApp’s privacy policy.

Calling the messaging service to be private, Kant doubted that “a poor woman selling fruit in the street” or a domestic worker could expect to understand how their data is being used.

Some judges also criticized Meta in that user data was classified beyond the content of the message. Justice Joymalya Bagchi said the court wanted to assess the extent of behavioral information and how it is used in advertising, saying that even anonymous or hidden information has economic value. Prosecutors added that personal information was not only collected but also used for commercial purposes.

Meta’s lawyers said that the platform’s messages are private and inaccessible to the company, arguing that the privacy policies in question did not weaken the security of users or allow chats to be used for advertising.

This case comes from a Update for 2021 to WhatsApp’s privacy policy which requires users in India to agree to share information with Meta or stop using the service. India’s competition watchdog later imposed a fine of ₹2.13 billion (about $23.6 million), finding that the policy abused WhatsApp’s dominant position in the voice market. That decision was to be held on appeal before Meta and WhatsApp moved the Supreme Court to dismiss it. Meta’s lawyers told the court that the sentence had already been imposed.

The Supreme Court has adjourned the case until February 9, so that Meta and WhatsApp explain in detail how they use their data. At the suggestion of the competition regulator, the court also agreed to add the IT ministry as a party to the case, expanding the scope of the case.

Meta declined to comment.

WhatsApp has been facing intense scrutiny over its privacy practices around the world. US officials say they will he searched for the statement that WhatsApp chats may not be as private as the company claims, raising more questions about how the messaging platform uses user data.

In India, WhatsApp is also running new restrictions, including recently SIM building regulations aimed at combating fraud, which would reduce the number of small businesses using messaging services.