Indian trade union files petition against WhatsApp and Facebook for arbitrary privacy policy

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has filed a petition in the Supreme Court that urges messaging app WhatsApp, as well as its parent company Facebook to withdraw its new privacy policy.

As per CAIT, WhatsApp has been fraudulently collecting personal user data.

"The CAIT will not allow any Corporate or Conglomerate to enforce its obnoxious policies and sinister designs to make a profit in an unethical manner resting the gun on the shoulder of people of India," it said in a statement.

The petition has been drafted by Advocate Abir Roy and filed in the Supreme Court by Advocate on Record Vivek Narayan Sharma.

According to CAIT,  in August 2016, WhatsApp retracted from its previous policy and introduced a new Privacy Policy which severely compromised the rights of its users and made the privacy rights of users completely vulnerable.

"Under the new privacy policy, it allowed the sharing of personal data with Facebook and all its group companies for commercial advertising and marketing," it said, adding that the messaging service has since been altering its policies to collect and process a wider range of information.

This of course isn't the first petition to be filed against Whatsapp's new privacy policy.

The Delhi High Court on January 15 began hearing a petition against messaging platform WhatsApp's updated privacy policy.

The petitioner, Advocate Chaitanya Rohilla, said the revised policy violates the Right to Privacy, legal news website Bar & Bench reported.

The plea also said the Facebook-owned platform's policy provides a "360-degree profile into a person's online activity", without any government oversight. It also said there is no clarity on the extent to which sensitive data will be shared.