Whatsapp Privateness Coverage: Hearing on petition challenging WhatsApp policy now on 17 January

WhatsApp Privateness Coverage case was heard in the Supreme Court on Thursday. Two students have filed a petition challenging the WhatsApp policy. It said that sharing the details of users with WhatsApp owners Facebook or someone else is a violation of their privacy and freedom of expression. During the hearing, it has been said by the Center that India’s users cannot be underestimated than the rest of the countries of the world. A new bill is going to come in this case. After the Center’s argument, the apex court postponed the hearing till next year. The court will now hear the petition challenging WhatsApp policy on 17 January 2023.

According to the news agency report, Justice K.K. A five -member constitution bench headed by M. Joseph has asked all parties to present arguments by December 15 in this case. The bench also included Justice Ajay Rastogi, Justice Anirudh Bose, Justice Hrishikesh Roy and Justice CT Ravikumar.

The bench said, “We list the matter on 17 January 2023 for a final hearing.” The court heard the petition filed by two students- Karmanya Singh Sarin and Shreya Sethi. The petition was challenged to share information related to users such as photos, videos text, documents etc. According to the petition, it is a violation of the freedom of users and freedom of expression.

Talking about other news related to WhatsApp, the popular messaging platform has announced to roll out a new feature called Name Hyperlinks by the end of this week. With the help of this feature, users will be able to start a new call or will be able to join a call already running. The ‘call link’ option will be added inside the call tab. Users will be able to create a link for audio or video calls, which can be easily shared on other platforms. Users have to ensure that they are running the latest version of the app. WhatsApp has also announced that it has started testing group video calls for a maximum of 32 people on WhatsApp.