WhatsApp ordered to stop sharing user data with Facebook: Report
Chatting platform WhatsApp has been ordered by France’s strict privacy watchdog CNIL to stop sharing user data with its parent company Facebook. The firm has merely a month to get in line with the orders. The public notice for the same has even appeared on the official French government website.
According to The Verge, WhatsApp established through its terms of service last year, which the company shares user data with its parent company, Facebook. The reason as stated by WhatsApp were revolving around its advertising, security measure and business intelligence purposes. Global watchdogs did not take lightly to the news after they discovered that WhatsApp had begun sharing user data with Facebook.
Top among these watchdogs was France’s CNIL. They further investigated the matter and discovered that while WhatsApp’s intention of improving security was valid, their business intelligence reason cannot be accepted by them. Since the chatting platform never informed its users that they were collecting data for business intelligence, it was unfair for them to do so. The only way out for users to get out of this bond was by uninstalling the app.
However, CNIL has an even better solution: A complete eradication of the app from its French markets. Therefore, if WhatsApp fails to abide by the rules established by CNIL and continues to violate the fundamental freedoms of users, then their product will ultimately be banned in the French market.
France’s CNIL is not the only governing body which attempted to curb the invasion that WhatsApp strategically proceeded towards. Several other European regulators have tried to police Facebook in the past, especially when it comes to something as sensitive as data-sharing. Germany has forbidden Facebook against collecting user data from WhatsApp sometime in September 2016. The even United Kingdom sanctioned a similar order to Facebook, and the social media giant had agreed to stop collecting information from WhatsApp.
