Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: The government will investigate a claim that WhatsApp accessed the microphone of smartphone users while the phone was not in use, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said.
In a tweet, the minister said on May 10 that the government will examine the alleged breach of privacy even as the new Digital Personal Data Protection Bill was being readied.
This followed a claim that WhatsApp accessed a user’s microphone while he was sleeping.
“We will be examining this immediately and will act on any violation of privacy even as the new Digital Personal Data Protection bill is being readied,” he said.
WhatsApp has been under scrutiny in India over various issues. In October last year, the Meta-owned messaging app saw a two-hour service disruption, prompting the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to ask the platform to share reasons for the disruption.
Separately, WhatsApp users in India have reported a massive surge in incoming international spam calls over the past few days. Many users complained on Twitter that a major chunk of these spam calls had country codes belonging to Indonesia (+62), Vietnam (+84), Malaysia (+60), Kenya (+254) and Ethiopia (+251).
According to a Statista report, there are over 487 million WhatsApp users in India, making it the biggest market for the company.
