Advocate Madhavi Divan, appearing for two students

Karmanya Singh Sareen and Shreya Sethi who have challenged the policy, told the court that after the 2016 privacy policy, personal data was shared and metadata was collected by WhatsApp which were used for commercial purposes.

"The privacy policy is vague but it shows that data is shared. Data sharing is the business model and that is why Facebook had acquired WhatsApp for 19 billion dollars. It (data sharing) is a gold mine. To say that they are not sharing data is contrary on the face of it," she said, adding that despite end-to-end encryption, metadata is collected by them.

To this, the bench said "the issue would be whether they are really collating data. We are not concerned with their income".

Senior counsel Siddharth Luthra, appearing for the Indian arm of Facebook, told the bench that no one can access any messages the moment it is end-to-end encrypted.

The bench, however, asked, "can you violate Indian laws in the name of expanded operation".

During the hearing, the bench asked WhatsApp's counsel, "have you given any kind of undertaking before the European Union that you will not share data with Facebook?" The lawyer said there is no such undertaking given by them but there is data protection authority in European countries.

To this, the bench shot back, "Forget that, we are the data protection authority here. You must maintain a world standard."

"We can protect our citizens. It is our duty, a constitutional obligation. WhatsApp and Facebook has business interest. Here it is about citizenry interests. I do not think anybody would like to share his data in entirety," the bench said, indicating that they may also pass an interim order in the matter till the time the Centre comes out with regulation.

However, Venugopal said they are prepared to give an affidavit that not even a single message is read by anybody else while also raking up the issue of right to privacy.

Divan countered the submissions and claimed that it was like "economic espionage".

During the hearing, the bench said, "we are not sitting in the vacation to pass an interim order. We are sitting so that we can pass a judgement as soon as possible." "You (WhatsApp) say it is in the realm of a contract. Can you say either sign it by agreeing to it or leave it. If you say so, what the court can do," it said.

Venugopal, however, maintained that there was a regulation control and the writ petition filed before the Delhi High Court earlier was not maintainable.

On the issue of maintainablity, the Centre said they were committed to ensure freedom of choice of the subscribers.

Arguing on the aspect of maintainablity, Divan said the instant messaging platform was providing service by using public property and they have a public duty.

The bench, however, asked how these service providers operate and whether they use spectrum.

Divan said they do not use spectrum and the service is provided through the telecom service providers who have the licence.

She also referred to action taken on WhatsApp by other countries like in Europe, Italy and Germany.

The apex court is hearing the appeal assailing the Delhi High Court verdict on the ground that no relief was granted for the data shared by users after September 25, 2016 which amounted to infringement of fundamental rights under Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution.

It had on January 16 sought the responses from the Centre and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on the plea that privacy of over 157 million Indians has been infringed by social networking sites - WhatsApp and Facebook - for alleged commercial use of personal communication.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)