HC orders WhatsApp to remove users' data collected till September 25

Court had asked the federal government and Trai to take decision regarding putting regulation on such messaging platforms

The Delhi High court on Saturday ordered Internet messaging service WhatsApp to delete all date of people who have deleted the messaging app from their devices till September 25, when its new privacy policy comes into effect.

A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal passed this order while responding to the petition filed by Karmanya Singh, who challenged the new policy of the messaging app, alleging it violates the fundamental right to privacy.

"The high court says that in order to protect the interest of the users we will pass three directions. The first direction is that users who want to completely delete or not use WhatsApp, WhatsApp will have to delete all of their data and that data cannot be shared with Facebook," said Karmanya Singh.

"The second direction is that if users, who knowing that their data will be shared, they keep continuing to use WhatsApp after 25th September, even for those users their data upto 25th September has to be deleted. It cannot be shared with Facebook," he added.

The high court had also asked the federal government and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to take decision regarding putting regulation on such messaging platforms.

As per WhatsApp new policy it can collect and share information of its users' with Facebook and all its group companies for the purpose of commercial advertising and marketing on its platform. This includes the sharing of phone numbers and information on a user's contact list.