Mulling law for online data protection, Centre tells Supreme Court

"The Government is mulling on a data protection framework which essentially has to be in the form of a legislation to be passed by Parliament in line with the U.S. law on this subject".

"The government of India is actively mulling over a data-protection framework which may finally be made into legislation", Rohatgi told the Supreme Court bench that also included Justices A.K. Sikri, Amitava Roy, A.M. Khanwilkar and M. Shantanagoudar.

The issue of privacy involving such social media platforms had emerged as a major reason for the apex court to refer the case to a Constitution Bench.

Attorney general Mukul Rohatgi informed a five-judge bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra about the Centre's plans while responding to a petition that expressed concern over the violation of people's right to privacy through sharing of data flowing through "WhatsApp" because of a change in the app's privacy policy following its takeover by Facebook.

WhatsApp had originally been launched as an application in 2010 and its privacy policy then did not allow sharing user data with any other party.

In its verdict in September past year the HC had directed WhatsApp to delete the information/data of those who had opted out of the service before September 25, 2016 and not to share them with social networking site Facebook or its group companies.

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Senior Advocate Harish Salve, who appeared for the petitioner, assailed the privacy policy of the applications in question, detailing the ways in which sensitive information was leaked to third parties, often without the knowledge of the user.

He said any hearing by the Constitution Bench is preceded by framing of questions that would be addressed by it.

According to the petitioner, there are 157 million users on WhatsApp and Facebook, therefore the service provided by the social network and messaging app should be considered as a public utility service.

The issues will have to be fared by April 24 and the case will be heard on April 27.

The ruling delivered by Delhi high court chief justice G. Rohini had asked Trai to determine if an instant messaging service such as WhatsApp could be brought under the existing statutory framework.