Meta, formerly known as Facebook, and its messaging platform WhatsApp are planning to take the role of nodal liaison and complaints officer as well as chief compliance officer under India’s IT regulations for large social media companies. Over the past few days, Meta has put up ads for these positions on LinkedIn.
The new IT rules, which came into force in May this year, mandate that key social media intermediaries (with over 50 lakh users) appoint a grievance officer, a nodal officer and a chief compliance officer. These personnel must be residents of India.
At the time, WhatsApp named Paresh B Lal as its grievance officer for India on its website, while Facebook named Purti Priya as its grievance officer for India on its website. While the Facebook page shows Priya as the Grievance Officer, the WhatsApp website shows Varun Lamba as the Grievance Officer.
When contacted, Meta and WhatsApp said in an e-mailed statement, “We have appointed officers as per the requirements of the Intermediary Guidelines Rules. We are actively engaged in continuous dialogue with the government on the new IT rules and we Committed to keeping our users safe on our platform.”
He added: “We reserve the right to seek new candidates as needed as officers play a vital role and to lead these responsibilities include the recruitment of uniquely qualified personnel”.
Meta (formerly Facebook) counts India as one of its biggest markets for its family of apps. According to figures cited by the Indian government earlier this year, there are 53 crore WhatsApp users, 41 crore Facebook subscribers and 21 crore Instagram account holders in the country.
According to Meta’s post on LinkedIn, Meta is “looking for a highly motivated professional for the role of Nodal Contact Person and Grievance Officer for Facebook in India”.
The post states that this person will coordinate with law enforcement agencies in India, including facilitating timely response to legal requests valid under applicable law and our policies, and the Company’s acceptance, redressal and handling of user complaints and complaints. Will also oversee the response to complaints.
“The ideal candidate will be a seasoned professional who has significant prior experience in working with and/or working with law enforcement agencies and managing user complaints programs.”
For the Chief Compliance Officer position, META said: “The ideal candidate would be a seasoned leader and strategic thinker with in-depth knowledge of India’s evolving digital industry”.
That person will monitor and monitor compliance with applicable laws and regulations of India, including, but not limited to, information technology laws and regulations on behalf of Facebook and its family of apps and products.
According to the Post, the individual will “work closely and constructively with cross functional teams, including legal and policy, in reviewing and addressing government regulations, agency guidelines and policies”.
The WhatsApp post was written in a similar way.
As per the new IT rules, all intermediaries will have to prominently publish the name of the grievance officer and his contact details along with the mechanism by which a user or a victim can make a complaint, on their website, app or both. The Grievance Officer shall acknowledge the complaint within 24 hours and dispose of such complaint within a period of 15 days from the date of its receipt, and shall receive and accept any order, notice or direction issued by the Officers.
The Center has said that the new rules are designed to prevent misuse and abuse of the platform, and provide users with a robust platform for grievance redressal. Non-compliance with the rules will result in these platforms losing their intermediary status which gives them immunity from liabilities on any third party data hosted by them. In other words, they may be liable for criminal action in case of complaints.
After the new norms came into force on May 26, the IT ministry had asked important social media companies to immediately report compliance and provide details of three key officers appointed.
,with PTI input,
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