WhatsApp India head Abhijit Bose and Meta's public policy head Rajiv Aggarwal have resigned from their positions, social media major Meta said on Tuesday. The development comes within a week of Meta announcing 11,000 lay-offs across the globe. The company has given charge of Meta India Public Policy to Shivnath Thukral who is currently serving as Director of WhatsApp Public Policy in India.
The Indian government on Tuesday posed 14 questions to WhatsApp on its "invasive" changes in Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
WhatsApp's ambitious payment services' blueprint in India has been caught in a bind over concerns around authentication and its data storage practices.
WhatsApp has scrapped its May 15 deadline for users to accept its controversial privacy policy update and said not accepting the terms will not lead to deletion of accounts.
The government said that the unilateral changes are not fair and acceptable.
WhatsApp will not delete any account for not accepting its new privacy update, but users not agreeing to the controversial terms after "several weeks" will not be able to access their chat list, and eventually, will not be able to answer incoming phone or video calls over the app.
In an interview to PTI, WhatsApp head Will Cathcart said the Facebook-owned company remains committed to privacy and security of users across India and will continue to explain to users that their messages are end-to-end encrypted.
The policy change was originally scheduled to come into effect on February 8, the Facebook-owned company said.
Users well-versed in privacy laws or those concerned with their data would be worried; it could well be that many of us have already accepted the end user agreement without ado, points out Ashish Narsale.
Data processing compliance is the main reason behind the delay. The government, on several occasions, has made it clear that Indian financial data needs to be stored exclusively onshore and if it is processed outside, it needs to be brought back in 24 hours.
These users span across four continents and included diplomats, political dissidents, journalists and senior government officials.
WhatsApp, last month, sued Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group, accusing it of helping those buying its spyware Pegasus break into the phones of roughly 1,400 users across four continents.
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