The government on Tuesday told the Supreme Court it was in the process of implementing a comprehensive data-protection framework and sought to defer the hearing on the WhatsApp privacy policy issue.

Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi told a five-judge constitution Bench, headed by Justice Dipak Misra, that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) was in the process of evolving the data-protection framework.

Rohatgi urged the Bench that the hearing on WhatsApp’s privacy policy may be deferred for a couple of months as the new policy might be finalised by then.

“The government is actively mulling over a comprehensive date-protection framework,” he told the Bench.

The Bench, which fixed the matter for hearing on April 27, asked senior advocate Harish Salve, who is appearing for the petitioner, to formulate the issues to be deliberated upon by August 24.

The apex court had on April 5 referred social-media platform WhatsApp’s privacy policy matter to a constitution Bench.

The Supreme Court had on January 16 sought responses from the Centre and TRAI on a 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.

The Delhi High Court had earlier restrained WhatsApp from sharing with Facebook user information existing up to September 25, 2016, when its new privacy policy came into effect.

The High Court, in its verdict in September 2016, had directed WhatsApp to delete the information/data of those who had opted out of the service before September 25, 2016, and not to share them with Facebook or its group companies.

The High Court had also directed the Centre and TRAI to examine the feasibility of bringing the functioning of internet messaging applications such as WhatsApp under a statutory regulatory framework.

WhatsApp had earlier informed the High Court that when a user account was deleted, the information of that person was no longer retained on its servers.

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