SC Slams WhatsApp/Meta Over Take-It-Or-Leave-It Privacy Policy
SC Slams WhatsApp/Meta Over Take-It-Or-Leave-It Privacy Policy
India's Supreme Court questions WhatsApp/Meta's policy, orders a detailed reply due by Feb 9, with IT Ministry to be made a party.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday (February 3, 2026) took strong exception to the 'take-it-or-leave-it' approach of WhatsApp's 2021 privacy policy. A Bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M. Pancholi said it will pass an interim order on February 9 after hearing arguments. The court also directed that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology be made a party to the petitions.
The hearing comes after WhatsApp and Meta challenged the NCLAT's upholding of the Competition Commission of India’s ₹213.14 crore penalty for abuse of dominance under competition laws. The court’s focus, however, was on privacy rights and the manner in which user data is presented for consent. Chief Justice Surya Kant orally remarked, 'How can you play with the privacy of consumers. The language of your ‘opt-out’ clause is complicated. How can you expect a person from rural Tamil Nadu to understand it. There is no question of sharing data.'
He further asserted, 'You can’t play with the right of privacy of citizens. We will not allow you to share a single word of the data, either you give an undertaking...you cannot violate the right of privacy of citizens.' The bench described the privacy terms as 'cleverly crafted' in a way that a common person cannot grasp, signaling that the court may demand changes to the policy before endorsing it. 'This is a decent way of committing theft of private information, we will not allow you to do that... You have to give an undertaking otherwise, we have to pass an order,' the CJI added.
The court stressed that the right to privacy is zealously guarded in the country, signaling serious scrutiny of how tech firms collect, store, and share personal data even as users face potentially broad data collection. The matter remains a high-stakes test of how India regulates digital privacy in the age of global platforms.
In the background, WhatsApp and Meta had petitioned the Supreme Court against the NCLAT order; the case now heads toward a clear response from Meta/WhatsApp with a concrete interim direction expected by February 9. The IT Ministry’s involvement could shape how policy language is framed and how data practices are monitored in light of constitutional privacy guarantees. The court’s interim order could set the tone for how such privacy policies must be communicated to users, especially those with limited digital literacy.
