Germany has ordered Facebook to stop collecting and storing data on Whatsapp-users in their country. This is unusual, since it’s the first challenger that confronted the controversial data-sharing scheme that Facebook has announced in August. In a statement published a couple of weeks ago, Germany said that sharing WhatsApp user data with Facebook constitutes an infringement of the ”national data protection law”. Germany’s regulators are also forcing Facebook to delete all data that has been transferred from Whatsapp.
Jan Koum assured users that their privacy would not be compromised. This statement has been closely monitored by privacy groups across Europe, since Facebook’s acquirement of Whatsapp in 2014. Nonetheless, WhatsApp will inevitably share some user data, for example phone numbers, with Facebook and plans to allow businesses to contact users directly through its app.
Whatsapp states that the arrangement will allow Facebook to deliver more targeted advertising and friends suggestions, and that analytics data will prevent spam and fraud. However, privacy advocates blame Facebook and Whatsapp for not being transparent about the change. Electronic Frontier Foundation explained in a blog post that the move is ”a clear threat to users’ control of how their WhatsApp data is shared and used.”
Johannes Caspar elaborated on these concerns in a statement on Tuesday and said that Facebook has not ”obtained effective approval” of the policy change from Whatsapp users. He also said that Facebook will probably try to collect more data from a broader range of users, including those listed in Whatsapp contact lists who are not connected to Facebook.
France data protection authority and a group of privacy regulators across Europa also stated that privacy watchdogs will be monitoring the change to Whatsapp’s policy with great care. Britain’s data privacy regulator also said that it would definitely monitor how data is shared across the two platforms, but does not have the authority to block the scheme altogether.
Facebook has stated that the company will appeal the order from Germany’s privacy watchdog and that it complies with EU Data protection law. Therefore, they will appeal this order and will work with the Hamburg DPA in an effort to address their questions and help people with their concerns.
Hi,Thomas, Thanks for sharing your post!
I have to say that I am curious to see how this develops. I believe that this is more of a hype and that nobody will talk about it anymore in a few months. The switching costs for the users are just too high. Even with good alternatives regarding privacy (signal etc.), I still don’t believe that many users will switch from message sending platform. Moreover, it all has to do with the fact that people have to choose between (in their eyes) a little bit of privacy loss, and the inconvenience of using a messaging app which is a lot more unpopular. Moreover, as said before, people will probably choose the most comfortable option of staying with WhatsApp. This does raise some questions. How far can WhatsApp go before people say, It’s enough?
Thank you for your post Thomas!
Your blog basically demonstrates it is getting almost impossible to make Facebook stop collecting data through WhatsApp. It is stated that privacy watchdogs and data privacy regulators will be monitoring the policy changes, but it doesn’t seem like they have the power to stop possible infringements on personal information. Moreover, even when the European court decides it is no longer possible to store data from European users in the United Stated, Facebook still manages to continue storing this data in the US through an alternative route (van Noort, 2015). This raises the question whether regulatory institutions are still able to keep huge data powered companies like Facebook in control.