India’s Supreme Court for WhatsApp: ‘You can’t play with the right to privacy’

India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday delivered an unusually sharp rebuke to Meta, warning that it would not allow the social media giant to “tamper with the right to privacy” of Indian users, as judges questioned how WhatsApp monetizes personal data.

The comments were made as Meta appealed a penalty imposed over WhatsApp’s 2021 privacy policy. Regents repeatedly asked the company how users could meaningfully consent to data-sharing practices in a market where the app is largely the default communications platform.

With over 500 million users, India is WhatsApp’s largest market and a key growth area for Meta’s advertising business. The justices in the case question the potential commercial value of the metadata the platform generates, and how that data might be monetized via Meta’s broader advertising and AI functions.

During the hearing, Chief Justice Surya Kant said the Supreme Court would not allow Meta and WhatsApp to share even “a single piece of information” while the appeal was pending, arguing that users faced little real choice in accepting WhatsApp’s privacy policy.

Describing the messaging service as a monopoly in practice, Kant asked how we could expect a “poor woman selling fruit in the street” or a domestic worker to understand how their data was being used.

The other reviewers also discussed meta about how to analyze user data beyond message content. Justice Joymalia Bagchi said the court wanted to examine the commercial value of behavioral data and how it is used for targeted advertising, arguing that even anonymized or isolated information has economic value. Government lawyers added that personal data was not only collected, but also commercially exploited.

Meta’s lawyers said the platform’s messages were end-to-end encrypted and inaccessible even to the company, arguing that the privacy policy in question did not weaken user protections or allow chat content to be used for advertising.

The case stems from a 2021 update to WhatsApp’s privacy policy that required users in India to accept broader terms for sharing data with Meta or stop using the service. India’s competition regulator later imposed a fine of 2.13 billion Indian rupees (about $23.6 million), finding that the policy abused WhatsApp’s dominance in the messaging market. This ruling was upheld on appeal before Meta and WhatsApp moved the Supreme Court to challenge it. Meta’s lawyers told the court that the penalty had already been paid.

The Supreme Court adjourned the case until February 9, allowing Meta and WhatsApp to explain their data practices in more detail. At the suggestion of the Competition Regulatory Authority, the court also agreed to add the Ministry of Information Technology as a party to the case, widening the scope of the proceedings.

Meta declined to comment.

WhatsApp is facing increasing scrutiny over its data privacy around the world. Authorities in the US are reportedly examining claims that WhatsApp chats may not be as private as the company asserts, raising broader questions about how encrypted messaging platforms handle user data.

In India, WhatsApp is also navigating new regulatory restrictions, including recent SIM-related rules aimed at curbing fraud, which could limit the extent to which small businesses can use the messaging service.