TRAI To Supreme Court: Deactivated Mobile Number Not Given To A New Subscriber For 90 Days (image:facebook.com/TRAI)

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has told the apex court that once a mobile telephone number is deactivated for non-usage or disconnected at the request of subscriber, it is not allocated to a new subscriber for at least a period of 90 says.

The Supreme Court was hearing a petition regarding concern over alleged misuse of data, when a mobile number gets disconnected or deactivated due to non-usage. A bench, consisting of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti stated that the subscriber can prevent the misuse by taking adequate steps to secure privacy.

The Court also noted that earlier subscriber can prevent misuse of WhatsApp data by deleting the WhatsApp account attached with the previous phone number as well as erasing the data stored on the local device memory, cloud or drive.

As per the information given by the WhatsApp help center, in case of re-cycled phone numbers, if WhatsApp monitors account inactivity, and when an account is inactive for 45 days and then the account is activated on different mobile device, the old account data is removed.

Stating these findings, the top Court disposed off a 2021 writ petition which put forth concerns regarding the misuse of mobile numbers after they are deactivated.