The Competitors Fee of India had earlier mentioned that customers have been pressured to share information for continued entry to WhatsApp messaging companies. | Picture Credit score: PTI
Instantaneous messaging platform WhatsApp maintained within the Supreme Court docket on Monday (February 23, 2026) that it isn’t “fairly proper” to say the web entity is sharing information with different Meta platforms.
Showing earlier than a three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, for WhatsApp and guardian firm Meta, mentioned its expertise was very clear and put a premium on privateness. “There isn’t any query of violating the legislation,” Mr. Sibal submitted.
He additional submitted that the Digital Private Information Safety (DPDP) Act, 2023, comprehensively addressed the privateness considerations raised within the Supreme Court docket.
The court docket was listening to petitions filed by Meta and WhatsApp in opposition to a Nationwide Firm Legislation Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) choice to uphold a ₹213.14 crore penalty imposed by the Competitors Fee of India (CCI).
The CCI had discovered WhatsApp’s ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ method in its 2021 privateness coverage an abuse of its market dominance. It discovered the prior consent sought from customers to share their information with Meta “manufactured”. It had concluded that customers have been pressured to share information for continued entry to WhatsApp messaging companies.
In an enchantment final yr, the NCLAT concluded that the “core precept is to take away exploitation by restoring person selection”.
“The customers may be given selection if customers retain the precise to determine what information is collected from them, for which functions, and for a way lengthy. We had additionally acknowledged in our findings that any non-essential assortment or cross-use (like promoting and so forth.) can happen solely with the involved person’s specific and revocable consent,” the NCLAT had noticed.
On Monday (February 23, 2026), WhatsApp mentioned it will absolutely adjust to the NCLAT instructions regarding person consent for sharing information with guardian firm Meta below its controversial 2021 privateness coverage by March 16, 2026. The tribunal had, nonetheless, discovered the CCI’s five-year ban on sharing information for commercial functions “redundant”, contemplating that the person had already been given a option to decide in or out.
WhatsApp has filed a complete affidavit explaining its expertise of end-to-end encryption, following scathing oral remarks from the Bench within the earlier listening to on February 3.
The Bench had cautioned that it will not allow the platform and Meta to breach the precise to privateness of hundreds of thousands of their “silent shoppers” in India by means of the sharing and industrial exploitation of private information. It had even in contrast sharing of personal information to a “first rate means of committing theft”.
Though WhatsApp and Meta had protested that customers might ‘decide out’ of the data-sharing provision, the court docket had continued in its criticism.
Senior advocate Madhavi Goradia Divan, for CCI, mentioned there was additionally a contest legislation concern connected to the case.
“Information-sharing has many sides. One could also be privateness and information safety. However there may be one other facet, defending market and shopper, which stands on a very completely different footing,” Ms. Divan submitted.
Printed – February 23, 2026 09:10 pm IST