WhatsApp refuses to comply with Delhi's High Court order

Despite receiving an order from Delhi High Court to delete any data collected from users who opted out of the WhatsApp's new privacy policy, the messaging platform has no plans to comply with the court order.

According to Mashable India, WhatsApp is sharing user’s information with its parent Company Facebook, just as planned.

"The ruling has no impact on the planned policy and terms of service updates," WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement.

WhatsApp announced last month that it will begin sharing account information of its customers with Facebook which would be used to help its ads, generating more information and fight spam and abuse.

The account information includes users' profile name, profile picture, status messages, mobile phone number as well as of those who are in their address book too.

The case before the Delhi High Court was brought by two Indian students who alleged that changes in WhatsApp’s terms and privacy policy “endangers” privacy of millions of users, and “severely compromises the rights of its users.” They also urged WhatsApp to be more transparent about how it shares data with users and make it easier for its customers to make critical privacy choices.

Apart from India, Germany has also started taking action against the changed policy.

The Hamburg data protection commissioner has issued an administrative order that “prohibits Facebook with immediate effect to collect and store data of German WhatsApp users”, according to a spokesperson, “Facebook is also ordered to delete all data that has already been forwarded by WhatsApp.”

For now, Facebook has said it will appeal the court order.