European governments are giving a hard time to Facebook and WhatsApp after their recent decision to share WhatsApp users’ data. Germany has been the first country to ban the Data-Sharing Project of the two services and now the UK is officially following the same path.
It all started in September, when the information commissioner Elizabeth Denham asked for an investigation into the data-sharing. So, the UK’s National Data Protection Whatchdog, the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) has considered to take actions against Facebook and WhatsApp. Until now, when Facebook has officially agreed to put a stop to its plan to collect data about British WhatsApp users for the purposes of targeting adverts, but will continue to share data with WhatsApp to fight spam.
Elizabeth Denham is convinced that users don’t have a clear idea on what is going on, and stated that “I don’t think users have been given enough information about what Facebook plans to do with their information, and I don’t think WhatsApp has got valid consent from users to share the information,”. She also said that users should have total control over this new privacy policy option, and “not just a 30-day window”.
Facebook admits that many other European Data Protection authorities have asked for more information, but for the moment the company prefers to avoid to agree to specific resolutions with any one particular regulator. Recently Facebook said: “WhatsApp designed its privacy policy and terms update to give users a clear and simple explanation of how the service works, as well as choice over how their data is used. These updates comply with applicable law, and follow the latest guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. We hope to continue our detailed conversations with the ICO and other data protection officials, and we remain open to working collaboratively to address their questions.”
But, despite this sort of agreement, Elizabeth Denham is not completely satisfied and is convinced that the WhatsApp data-sharing case is just part of a bigger problem in the technology industry, and said that “Our digital comings and goings create rich portraits of our lives, and vague terms of service when we sign up aren’t giving us the protection we need,”.
Let’s see if other European countries will join Germany and the UK and will succeed in stopping the Facebook data-sharing program with WhatsApp.