NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulator has told the Supreme that a mobile number gets deactivated only after 90 days upon a request by a subscriber or due to non usage.
The WhatsApp also removes the old data, if the account of a mobile number is activated on a different device after being deactive for 45 days.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and S V N Bhatti declined to consider a writ petition filed by Rajeswari, a Tamil Nadu advocate, taking an affidavit filed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India into record.
The petitioner sought a direction to the TRAI to stop recycling used or de-activated mobile numbers to new customers.
The bench said, "It is clear from the counter affidavit filed by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) that the cellular mobile telephone number once deactivated for non usage or disconnected on the request of subscriber, is not allocated to the new subscriber for at least a period of 90 days."
The telecom regulator said it is for the previous subscriber to take adequate steps to ensure that privacy is maintained.
"The subscriber can prevent misuse of WhatsApp data by deleting the WhatsApp account attached with the previous phone number and erasing the WhatsApp data stored on the local device memory/cloud/drive," it noted.
"Further, as per the information available on the WhatsApp help center, to eliminate enmesh/ confusion in case of re-cycled phone numbers, they monitor account inactivity, and when an account is inactive for 45 days and then the account is activated on a different mobile device, the old account data is removed," the bench said.
