The WhatsApp privacy issue is becoming louder by the day. No doubt, the technological advancement has augmented the pace of individuals and groups but it also intrudes into the private life of people.
It is the need of the hour to ensure that beyond a certain point privacy of an individual or group should not be encroached upon. The point is how far, in the name of technological advancement, privacy of an individual can be trespassed. The answer to this concern is to be found before the life of an individual becomes an open book.
There are many national and international guidelines aimed at protecting the right of the people pertaining to privacy but the limits are not clearly defined and the boundaries are not clearly marked to make people contended about his privacy rights. The champions of privacy rights may try to broaden its sphere and catapult the debate as to whether the privacy rights could be looked through the prism of social right, economic right, fundamental, or even religious rights, depending on the modalities of the faith practised. However there has been mixed reaction on the WhatsApp privacy controversy.
According to Anupam Saraph, an innovator and polymath who has been an advisor in governance, informatics and strategic planning, “The ability of people to move en-masse from WhatsApp to Signal and Telegram is celebration of their ability to exercise liberty when mistreated. Unfortunately, other digital platforms, like Aadhaar, have monopolised the scene and taken away the liberty and dignity of people. Aadhaar has killed the alternatives that existed before it came to the scene, it is important that we revive those alternatives as Aadhaar has emerged a Frankenstein monster worse than WhatsApp.”
In the month of January users of WhatsApp had received a pop-up message where it was announced that WhatsApp is going to update its privacy policy and the accounts of those who failed to meet the deadline of 8 February would be suspended or deleted. As a result, downloads of WhatsApp dropped to 10.6 million from 12.7 million as compared to previous week. Therefore, WhatsApp had to issue a clarification that they would delay the updates till 15 May. A per data from Sensor Tower, in between 6-10 January, Signal racked up 2.3 million downloads while Telegram saw 1.5 million new downloads and installs in the same period.
On 15 January, the company, in a blog post, said it was trying to clear up the confusion, and it included a chart that specifies what information is protected when someone uses WhatsApp. Facebook executives, including Instagram chief Adam Mosseri and WhatsApp head Will Cathcart, also used Twitter to try and clear up the confusion. “While not everyone shops with a business on WhatsApp today, we think that more people will choose to do so in the future and it’s important people are aware of these services. This update does not expand our ability to share data with Facebook,” WhatsApp said in a blog post.
Danish Khan, CISM CISA CCSK, Advanced CyberDefense Threat Intelligence Consultant (Easytech4all.net), while sharing his perspective on the issue, said, “WhatsApp has come out and cleared the air around its updated privacy policy. The policy… applies only to business communication. The changes apply only if you opt to communicate with a business that integrates with WhatsApp. Here is all the data that will now be shared when communicating with any of the 50 million business accounts on the platform: 1. Phone number. 2. Device ID. 3 Location. 4 Transaction data. 5 Product interaction and User identifiers. Presumably, most of this information will be used for better ad targeting. By parsing your transaction data and your location, Facebook can optimize advertisements for your interests. We’ve already seen this happen between Facebook and Instagram.”
But John Dayal, a noted social and human rights activist, has raised his concern saying, “Ever since the ‘Enigma’ encrypting machine was cracked and decoded in the World War II, it is a well-known fact that eventually what one man, company or country encrypts, another man, company or country will crack its code. Therefore, no computer scientist will say that a machine cannot be hacked ever, even such a thing as an EVM. Only politicians and fools say that. I have therefore always worked on the presumption that all means of communication, letters, old style landline ones, mobile encoding iPhone and Blackberry, and the digital and smart media including WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, designed by corporate scientists and engineers will either be cracked by government scientists, or governments will put economic pressure on the companies to disclose the secrets and data of their clients.
“The issue is: will they be selling my data to their marketing groups without my permission. Unfortunately, most of us, even the educated ones, sign away our permissions to the security of our data when we buy a new software, or fill in the details when installing a new application. If there is really something important to discuss, I do not do it on digital apps, I would rather meet my friend in person. These Apps are for general communication, much like email and its equivalents,” argued Dayal.
“What I failed to understand is, why did WhatsApp think of changing their policy mid-way? What I believe is they were waiting for WhatsApp to pick up and then force something that was not discussed previously. What I highly disliked about the idea is that they were not letting the users use it only if they did not agree. This is totally unethical. I have also noticed that the apps, when getting installed, require permission that they are not entitled for, i.e. a photo editing software asking for access to call logs, and video recording,” said Sajid Nomani, who is working with a multinational company in India.
Meanwhile, the Government of India has asked WhatsApp to withdraw the recent changes in the privacy policy of the messaging app. In a strongly worded letter to WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said the proposed changes “raise grave concerns regarding the implications for the choice and autonomy of Indian citizens.”
Let’s understand the issue with a story from the times of Caliph Omar: Caliph Omar roamed the streets of Madinah at night to mingle with common people and get first-hand knowledge of prevailing problems. One night he was on a narrow street when he heard someone singing inside a house. He went in and saw a drunken man with a woman entertaining him with song and dance. He asked the man, “What are you doing?” The man recognised him and replied, “O Omar! This is my house! What are You doing here?” Caliph Omar apologised and left his house. The point to be remembered is the ruler of that time apologised for entering a house without seeking permission and choosing a wrong way to get into the house. This example underlines the complexity of the situation and the responsibility of the state with regard to right to privacy.