Supreme Court Questions WhatsApp Policy of Sharing User Data With Meta Entities

Two lawyers in court said the Supreme Court Tuesday threatened to reimpose a ban on Meta-owned WhatsApp’s data sharing with other group entities, saying that “the messaging app misled users by its privacy policy.”

WhatsApp has been tangled with India’s antitrust regulator since November 2024, after it fined the company $25. rs 4 million (Rs) ? WhatsApp was banned from sharing user data with other Meta entities for five years and had been blocked by 213 crore) as a means of advertising.

Later an appeals court quashed the data-sharing restriction but kept the monetary penalty, and both sides took to the Supreme Court.

In a statement on Tuesday’s hearing, India’S chief justice challenged WhatsApp’t privacy policy and said it was “very cleverly designed to mislead users,” the two lawyers said.

A poor old woman can’t be a good example of how to set up your privacy policy,’ . Lawyers say Chief Justice Surya Kant said ‘I think (someone who) comes from a rural area understand your intentions.

WhatsApp declined to comment on the remarks, saying the case was sub judice.

In Meta, users numbers are the largest market for Meta’s biggest market by user numbers in India. The country-specific figures are not disclosed but research firm DataReportal estimates Facebook has 403 million users in India and 481 million Instagram followers.

In the past WhatsApp said that “the ban may force it to roll back or pause some features in India and would hurt its business model” will be detrimental.

The Supreme Court did not give a final verdict, and will continue to hear the case next week.

There has also been a controversy elsewhere about meta’s privacy policy, which is also the point of contention. When it was charged with breaching European Union law and failed to clarify changes in plain and indivisible language, its policy was agreed by 2023 that it would explain the change of its policies.

According to the Indian antitrust authority’s 2024 ruling, WhatsApp allowed users to accept the changes or risk losing access to services and provided no option-out feature.

WhatsApp publicly identifies it shares with Meta a user’s phone number, transaction data, how they interact with businesses and mobile device information.

© Thomson Reuters 2026