Umamageswari Maruthappan
The Supreme Court issued a notice on the Impleadment Application while adjourning a plea concerning data protection on the UPI platforms from tech giants like Amazon, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Google. The matter is listed for hearing on 1st February 2021.
The Apex Court Bench comprising CJI S.A. Bobde, Justices A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian, while hearing a bunch of petitions sought directions to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to restrain these big companies from accessing individuals’ private details.
The petition alleged that RBI’s and NPCI’s permission to the firms to take part in the UPI system would lead to misuse of information and therefore impose a threat to data protection.
However, the RBI retaliated that the responsibility to deal with the concerned allegations doesn’t fall under its purview, rather it is a subject to be considered by the NPCI.
The petition further seeks to prevent the big tech companies from sharing any details or information they obtain with their parent firm.
The Impleadment Application was filed by Yedhu Menon submitted that WhatsApp Pay is ready to launch its full services despite a pending case in this behalf.
“WhatsApp is not permitted to launch full-scale operations of ‘WhatsApp Pay’ in India, without fulfilling all legal compliances to the satisfaction of this Hon’ble Court regarding the requisite regulatory compliances,” the IA stated.
Meanwhile, on 28th January 2021, WhatsApp had clarified that the information that it obtains through UPI will not be shared with Facebook, its parent company. It further assured that its services are in accordance with the RBI guidelines.
“WhatsApp does not store other customer payment sensitive information such as your one-time password (OTP), full account number, or any debit card details,” it added.
