Govt to examine WhatsApp's 'privacy breach' over background microphone use

Minister of State in Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar

The Indian government will examine WhatsApp's alleged breach of privacy following accusations that the Meta-owned instant messaging platform uses the microphone in the background.

Foad Dabiri, director of engineering at Twitter, on May 6 accused WhatsApp of using the microphone in the background while he was sleeping. He tweeted, "Since I woke up at 6 am, that's just a part of the timeline. What's going on?"

The tweet has since gone viral, and on May 10, it also evoked a reaction from Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

Chandrasekhar, in a tweet, said, "This is an unacceptable breach n violation of #Privacy. We will be examinig this immdtly and will act on any violation of privacy even as new Digital Personal Data protection bill #DPDP is being readied." (sic)

In response to these allegations, WhatsApp in a tweet said, "Over the last 24 hours we’ve been in touch with a Twitter engineer who posted an issue with his Pixel phone and WhatsApp. We believe this is a bug on Android that mis-attributes information in their Privacy Dashboard and have asked Google to investigate and remediate."

Upon reaching out to Meta for further clarifications regarding the matter, the company also pointed towards another statement put out by Shivnath Thukral, Director, Public Policy India, Meta on the matter.

In a tweet he said, “We believe this is a bug on Android, Google has said they are looking into it. Your calls and voice notes are protected by end-to-end encryption so we cannot hear the microphone in any case. We’re aligned on safeguarding privacy.”

Additionally, WhatsApp said that users have full control over their mic settings. "Once granted permission, WhatsApp only accesses the mic when a user is making a call or recording a voice note or video - and even then, these communications are protected by end-to-end encryption so WhatsApp cannot hear them," it added.

This comes as the Indian government prepares the Digital India Bill, a successor to the two-decade-old Information Technology Act, in which the government hopes to address a number of issues such as algorithmic accountability and company safe harbour provisions.

Simultaneously, the Indian government is also working on the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill (DPDP), which underwent a consultation last year. The government intends to introduce the bill in Parliament in the coming months. The legislation has provisions to deal with data breaches in the form of penalties.