CAIT Asks Govt to Ban WhatsApp, Facebook over new privacy policy

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Confederation of All India Traders
Confederation of All India Traders

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), wrote to communication minister Ravi Shankar Prasad over WhatsApp’s new privacy policy. Tender’s body demanded to restrict WhatsApp from implementing its new privacy policy or impose a ban on the messaging app and its parent company Facebook.
CAIT showed concerns and said Facebook has more than 200 million users in India and enabling it to access the data of every user can pose a serious threat to not only the economy but also to the security of the country.

Messaging app WhatsApp recently updated its privacy policy and will implement it from February. According to the new policy, WhatsApp and Facebook would be able to share users’ private information with businesses and third-party service providers that transact on these platforms. These new privacy policies have raised concerns among users. Privacy experts and antitrust bodies are also skeptical and are concerned over this new privacy policy of WhatsApp. Recently World’s richest person, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk asked people to use “Signal”, a messaging app, instead of using WhatsApp over privacy issues. After WhatsApp’s new privacy policies, other encrypted messaging apps like telegram and signal are seeing a sudden increase in demand.

However, after CAIT’s step, a spokesperson from WhatsApp responded to PTI via email and explained the new privacy policy. In the statement, it was claimed that new privacy policies are only to increase transparency, and users’ privacy is important and the platform is committed to preventing their privacy. Further, it said that the new privacy policy won’t affect the way people used to communicate with their friends and family.
CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said, “The changed privacy policy of WhatsApp is an encroachment on the privacy of an individual and runs against the basic fundamentals of the Constitution of India and therefore the CAIT has demanded immediate intervention of the government”.
However in an official statement WhatsApp clarifies that the new privacy policy does not affect consumer accounts, Businesses can choose for hosting services from Facebook if they wish to and It’s totally upon WhatsApp users and they can choose to not talk to businesses.