India's Supreme Court halts Meta's user data sharing
India's Supreme Court just told WhatsApp and Meta to pause on sharing any user data while a major privacy case is underway.
The court made it clear—people's right to privacy isn't up for grabs, and not even "a single piece of information" should be shared until the appeal over a ₹213 crore penalty is settled.
What's at stake here?
With over 500 million users in India, WhatsApp's 2021 "take it or leave it" privacy policy got called out by the Chief Justice as basically forcing people to give up their info.
The big question: should WhatsApp be allowed to use your metadata for ads and AI, even if chats are encrypted?
If the court sides with regulators, we could see stricter rules on how tech giants handle our data—and maybe more real control for users over what they share online.