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WhatsApp-Facebook Privacy U-Turn Now Being Probed by EU Data Watchdog (techcrunch.com)

Posted by msmash on from the taking-a-stand dept.

European privacy regulators have fired a warning shot to Facebook's WhatsApp and Yahoo, saying they sent letters to the companies expressing concerns about possible violations of the bloc's data-protection rules. From a TechCrunch report: A seismic shift in privacy policy by messaging app WhatsApp this summer, when it said it would begin sharing user data with parent company Facebook including for ad targeting, has now attracted the attention of European's data protection watchdog group, the Article 29 Working Party. The WP29 group wrote to WhatsApp founder Jan Koum yesterday, setting out its concerns about the privacy policy U-turn -- including how the shift was communicated to users. "The Article 29 Working Party (WP29) has serious concerns regarding the manner in which the information relating to the updated Terms of Service and Privacy Policy was provided to users and consequently about the validity of the users' consent,"it writes. "WP29 also questions the effectiveness of control mechanisms offered to users to exercise their rights and the effects that the data sharing will have on people that are not a user of any other service within the Facebook family of companies."

13 of 25 comments (clear)

  1. Handle things on your own. by Zombie+Ryushu · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Handle things independently. Set up your own servers with your own PKI, set up your own Groupware, XMPP, CalDav, OwnCloud file sharing. Don't rely on other people to secure your systems for you. Invite the people you know and you trust to use your servers on public servers and then communicate in private on your own servers you host yourself. That is what I do.

    My Android devices so not talk to Google's servers, they talk to my home network when it comes to Contacts, Calendaring,Chatting, Tasks, so on and so fourth. I don't permit Windows nodes, or iDevices on my network. If you want privacy, do things yourself.

    1. Re:Handle things on your own. by sinij · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I very much agree with you! I also kill my own food, make my own tools (you should see this keyboard I am using that I rigged from deer teeth and old mattress springs!), and pedal to produce my own electricity.

    2. Re:Handle things on your own. by I4ko · · Score: 1

      Somebody mod parent UP

    3. Re:Handle things on your own. by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 3, Funny


      Sounds pretty rad! -is it a bitch to floss?

      --
      A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
    4. Re:Handle things on your own. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Cool story, bro. Now snap out of your autism and come join the real world.

    5. Re:Handle things on your own. by MrL0G1C · · Score: 1

      Set up your own servers with your own PKI, set up your own Groupware, XMPP, CalDav, OwnCloud file sharing.

      So simple, who knew, I bet I could set that up in a couple of minutes. Could you give a link to the installer file, I'll just go with the defaults.

      --
      Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
    6. Re:Handle things on your own. by GNious · · Score: 1

      My Android devices so not talk to Google's servers,

      At all? As in, there's absolutely no way for it to call home for anything, and optionally slip some usage data, or some contacts or anything else, into the datastream?

  2. Also a violation of the US-Canada and Canada-EU by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    Technically, due to the strong Constitutional privacy rights in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it's a violation of any data for any Canadian citizen involved in the EU as well, under current treaties.

    Constituion overrules all. Treaties are subject to them. You can't give away Rights or Freedoms or make exceptions in a Treaty.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    1. Re:Also a violation of the US-Canada and Canada-EU by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      Not a domestic law. It's the fricking Canadian Constitution itself. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is not a law, it's the fricking Constitution.

      CAPICHE?

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  3. What data? by mugurel · · Score: 1

    I thought Whatsapp has end-to-end encryption nowadays...

    1. Re:What data? by winphreak · · Score: 1

      As did I. There might be some user data to be collected, and who it was sent to, but that's my only guess.
      Maybe they keep tabs on it for their facebook overlords now? God knows everything that was once on facebook exists somewhere in a server or backup.

      --
      "I'm a well-wisher, in that I don't wish you any specific harm."
    2. Re:What data? by cpghost · · Score: 1

      You can't be sure if they don't provide the source code. But even if they did... basically, they claim to implement Signal Private Messenger's protocol, which is strong end-to-end encryption. However, even this protocol doesn't hide metadata from WhatsApp's servers. For example, every WhatsApp user needs to keep WhatsApp directory server(s) updated about his/her current IP so she can be found by others WhatsApp users. This alone is already up to a couple of hours pretty accurate meta data that can be invaluable to Facebook... which can target you with better ads, based on your current (network) location.

      --
      cpghost at Cordula's Web.
    3. Re:What data? by Zoxed · · Score: 1

      - list of all your WhatsApp contacts (usually imported from your phone contacts)
      - "metadata", e.g. how often you text which contacts