This was bound to happen. Everything Facebook touches turns into a privacy nightmare. For those who don’t know, WhatsApp used to have end-to-end encryption but all of that is going to change ever since Facebook announced that it was going to update WhatsApp’s privacy policy. The new changes would allow Facebook to aggregate all of its users’ data across every service they have.
This means no more end-to-end encryption and more ads. Basically, Facebook is going to be using your data to give you more but better-targeted ads but there are no fail-safes or regulations to stop Facebook from doing whatever they want. Due to this, A German regulator has opened proceedings against Facebook to stop them from going through with the privacy update.
The privacy regulator, Johannes Caspar, is the Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information and has opened the proceedings against Facebook Ireland Ltd. His aim is to issue an immediately executable order to Facebook to not collect any data from WhatsApp users and process it for their own purposes.
The commissioner said in a statement that “Currently, there is reason to believe that the data-sharing provisions between WhatsApp and Facebook are intended to be unlawfully enforced due to the lack of voluntary and informed consent. In order to prevent unlawful mass data sharing and to put an end to unlawful consent pressure on millions of people, a formal administrative procedure has now been initiated to protect data subjects”.
He further added that “WhatsApp is now used by almost 60 million people in Germany and is by far the most widely used social media application, ahead of Facebook. It is all the more important to ensure that the high number of users, which makes the service attractive to many people, does not lead to the abusive exploitation of data power”.
Facebook Ireland will be given the opportunity to comment during a hearing. The proceeding’s aim is to come to a decision before May 15 when the update is going to arrive.
