'Unacceptable': India to probe WhatsApp's 'privacy breach' over background microphone use

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 on Wednesday.  

The Indian government will examine WhatsApp's alleged breach of privacy following accusations that the Meta-owned instant messaging platform uses the microphone in the background.

In a tweet, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the government will examine the alleged breach of privacy even as the new Digital Personal Data Protection Bill was being readied. This came after a customer complained that WhatsApp had accessed his microphone while he slept.

According to Foad Dabiri, an engineering director at Twitter, wrote on Saturday: "WhatsApp has been using the microphone in the background, while I was asleep and since I woke up at 6 AM."

Replying to Dabiri's tweet, Chandrasekhar said, "This is an unacceptable breach and violation of privacy." He further wrote: "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."

Meanwhile, WhatsApp reacted by stating that it has spoken with the Twitter developer who had reported a problem with his Pixel phone and WhatsApp during the previous 24 hours.

According to a tweet from WhatsApp, "We believe this is an Android bug that misattributes information in their Privacy Dashboard and have asked Google to investigate and remediate."

"Once granted permission, WhatsApp only accesses the microphone when a user is making a call, recording a voice note, or uploading a video - and even then, these communications are protected by end-to-end encryption so WhatsApp cannot hear them," it said.

Separately, Indian WhatsApp users have reported a sharp increase in receiving spam calls from abroad in recent days. The majority of these spam calls included country codes from Indonesia (+62), Vietnam (+84), Malaysia (+60), Kenya (+254), and Ethiopia (+251), according to many individuals on Twitter.