Most Indians did not wake up this morning thinking about the intricacies of constitutional law or the valuation of their metadata. They opened WhatsApp, replied to a few messages, and went about their business. Yet, that quiet routine is exactly why the recent confrontation in the Supreme Court matters so much.
When Chief Justice Surya Kant warned Meta, and WhatsApp, that India will not allow companies to "play with the privacy" of its citizens, he was not just settling a legal dispute. He was defending the soul of our digital republic.
At the heart of this case is the Rs 213.14 crore penalty imposed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) over WhatsApp’s 2021 privacy policy. By removing the "opt-out" choice, Meta effectively presented Indians with a "take-it-or-leave-it" ultimatum. In a thunderous exchange, the court described this approach as a "decent way of committing theft of private information". This isn't just hyperbole; it is the thin end of the wedge in a global struggle against surveillance capitalism.
The ‘Digital Panopticon’
From a criminological perspective, this policy reflects what Shoshana Zuboff calls the "Big Other", a ubiquitous institutional regime that records, modifies, and commodifies everyday experience.
These platforms create a "Digital Panopticon", where users are constantly visible to the corporation while the company remains opaque behind cleverly crafted legalese.
The court’s concern for the "silent consumer", the street vendor or the rural grandmother, is a masterclass in modern criminology. For these users, being excluded from WhatsApp is a form of "civil death" because essential infrastructure, from banking to governance, is now mediated through the app. When consent is coerced through market dominance, it ceases to be a contract and becomes an "economic crime" of exploitation.
Why Your Metadata Is So Valuable
Why is Meta fighting so hard for your metadata?
The answer lies in the cold, hard math of digital advertising. According to a study by ICRIER, India is Meta’s largest market by volume, but a low revenue one by value.
While Meta earns an average quarterly revenue of about $56.44 per user in the US and Canada, the figure drops sharply to just $3.43 in India.
To bridge this valuation gap, Meta must monetise shadow data. These are the digital breadcrumbs we leave behind without typing a single word. While message content stays encrypted, the metadata is wide open for harvest. Through behavioural fingerprinting, Meta tracks who you message, how often you talk, your location, and even your device type to build a psychological profile of your life.
By forcing an umbilical cord between WhatsApp and Instagram, the company creates a cross-platform dossier. If you message a doctor on WhatsApp, you are broadcasting a shadow signal that allows Meta to auction your health concerns to advertisers on Instagram minutes later.
This silent extraction builds a digital fiefdom that traps users and kills competition by demanding an unfair data price from citizens with no viable alternative. As the Supreme Court noted, this is a decent way of committing theft by turning private associations into commodified fuel for the Silicon Valley engine.
When Privacy Becomes Market Power
The legal battle has now crossed the Rubicon. The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) recently affirmed that privacy is a "non-price competition factor". In our "zero-price" economy, we don't pay with rupees; we pay with our privacy. When a dominant player degrades its privacy standards, it is effectively reducing the quality of its service.
This interdisciplinary approach links competition law with the Puttaswamy judgment, which recognised privacy as a fundamental right intrinsic to dignity. The court’s willingness to examine corporate data practices through a constitutional lens, specifically the "horizontal application" of rights against private actors, signals a shift toward a more responsible market order.
Who Owns India’s Data?
The Silicon sultans often argue that strict regulation stifles innovation. This is a false choice.
Protecting privacy does not mean rejecting technology; it means insisting that progress operates within ethical limits. The Supreme Court has signalled that scale does not confer immunity and that convenience cannot come at the cost of dignity.
Whether this becomes a genuine turning point depends on how our regulators enforce the law and how aware we become of the value of our own data. In India’s digital future, privacy is not a favour granted by platforms. It is a right that demands protection. Is Silicon Valley ready to respect the sovereignty of the Indian citizen? Let us hope the answer arrives before the theft becomes permanent.
(Hansin Kapoor is a final-year Criminology and Criminal Justice student at Jindal Global Law School. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author's own. The Quint does not endorse or is responsible for them.)