The Supreme Court of India has issued notices to central government, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), WhatsApp, and Facebook over a plea seeking privacy on data.
The petition was filed by two law students against the WhatsApp's proposal to start sharing some of the user data with the parent company, Facebook.
The Delhi High Court had earlier denied the petition and refused to interfere with matter. However, the Apex court has directed the companies to reply to the notices within two weeks.
"What is disturbing here is you want to continue using this private service and at the same time want to protect your privacy... You can choose not avail of it [WhatsApp], you walk out of it,” Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar said.
According to the petitioner, there are 157 million users on WhatsApp and Facebook.
It's not that Facebook and WhatsApp are facing privacy issue in India only, the even European Union has raised questions about Facebook's privacy policy.
Last month the European Union Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, had said that "Facebook was misleading it about WhatsApp.Companies are obliged to give the Commission accurate information during merger investigations... In this specific case, the Commission's preliminary view is that Facebook gave us incorrect or misleading information during the investigation into its acquisition of WhatsApp. Facebook now has the opportunity to respond."