SC may wait for data protection bill before probing WhatsApp privacy policy

The top court observed that there was no harm in waiting for the bill to be tabled and "heavens are not going to fall in the meanwhile"

The Supreme Court said on Tuesday that it will examine the feasibility of considering a plea challenging WhatsApp’s policy to share users’ data with parent company Facebook and others, after the introduction of the data protection bill in the Budget Session.

Solicitor General(SG) Tushar Mehta told a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Justice K M Joseph that a data protection bill is likely to be introduced in the second half of the ongoing Parliament session.

“Data protection bill will be introduced, subject to administrative issues, in the second half of this session which started today. We have filed an affidavit,”