Indian Govt pro-actively looking for action on WhatsApp privacy rules issue

Government of India “pro-actively” looking at best possible options around WhatsApp new privacy rules, a senior Ministry of Electronics and IT official said on Thursday.

Pro-Active Approach

As you might be aware , WhatsApp had set May 15 for its users to accept a change in privacy policy but later scrapped the deadline for users to accept the controversial update. It has also said that not accepting the terms will not lead to deletion of accounts. WhatsApp had faced severe backlash over user concerns that data was being shared with Facebook, its parent company.

“The ministry is cognisant of this problem. Today, Germany has banned this privacy policy of WhatsApp. The ministry is proactively looking at what we can do about it”

MeitY Special Secretary and Financial Advisor Jyoti Arora

Germany data protection regulator has banned the data collection by WhatsApp with new terms of use as illegal. Arora during the event said the pandemic has pushed usage of digital services across the country and there is a need to have robust cybersecurity infrastructure.

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“When you have a digitally fast-growing economy, cyber trust becomes a critical element to ensure that we are able to achieve the intended economic outcome by the use of technology,” Arora said.

Cybersecurity Issues

In 2020, the country’s cybersecurity watchdog Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) had reported that there were 3 lakh cyber incidents only in the digital banking which is a two-fold increase from 2018 and it is increasing rapidly.

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MeitY has taken multiple initiatives for cybersecurity, including setting up of Cyber Swachhta Kendra” (Botnet Cleaning and Malware Analysis Centre) and sectoral CERTs in the area of finance and power., She continued.

As mentioned, We have an integrated grid and all these grids are connected to all our generation systems whether they are nuclear plants or coal plants. A single major cyber incident can put the country in the darkness.