India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday delivered an extraordinary rebuke to Meta, warning it will not allow the social media giant to “play with the privacy rights” of Indian users, as the judge questioned how WhatsApp monetizes personal data.
Comment made when Meta appealed a punishment implemented through the privacy policy of WhatsApp 2021. The judges repeatedly asked the company how users can give their consent to the practice of sharing data in a market where the application is the standard communication platform.
With over 500 million users, India is WhatsApp’s largest market and a key growth area for Meta’s advertising business. The judges in the case questioned the potential commercial value of the metadata generated by the platform, and how that data could be monetized in Meta advertising and wider AI functions.
During the hearing, Chief Justice Surya Kant said the Supreme Court would not allow Meta and WhatsApp to share “a piece of information” even when the appeal is pending, arguing that users have no real choice to accept WhatsApp’s privacy policy.
Calling messaging services a monopoly in practice, Kant questions how “a poor woman selling fruit on the street” or a domestic worker can be expected to know how data is being used.
Other judges also hit Meta on how user data is analyzed beyond the content of messages. Justice Joymalya Bagchi said the court wants to examine the commercial value of behavioral data and how it is used for targeted advertising, arguing that anonymous or siled information carries economic value. Government lawyers added that personal data was not only collected but also commercially exploited.
Meta’s lawyers said the platform’s messages are encrypted end-to-end and cannot be accessed even by the company, arguing that its privacy policy does not undermine user protection or allow chat content to be used for advertising.
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The case comes from a update 2021 to WhatsApp’s privacy policy requiring users in India to accept broader data sharing terms with Meta or stop using the service. India’s competition regulator later imposed a ₹2.13 billion (about $23.6 million) penalty, finding that the policy abused WhatsApp’s dominant position in the messaging market. The verdict upheld in the previous appeal Meta and WhatsApp moved the Supreme Court to challenge. Meta’s lawyer told the court that the penalty has been paid.
The Supreme Court has adjourned the matter until February 9, allowing Meta and WhatsApp to explain their data practices in more detail. On the advice of the competition regulator, the court also agreed to add the IT ministry as a party to the case, widening the scope of the proceedings.
Meta declined to comment.
WhatsApp has faced heightened scrutiny over data privacy around the world. Authorities in the US have been notified examined claims that WhatsApp chats may not be as private as the company claims, raising more questions about how the encrypted messaging platform handles user data.
In India, WhatsApp is also navigating new regulatory hurdles, including new SIM-binding rules aimed at preventing fraud, which can limit the extent to which small businesses use messaging services.