{"id":7139,"date":"2021-01-08T09:31:09","date_gmt":"2021-01-08T09:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outofsite.biz\/cynance\/?p=7139"},"modified":"2021-03-09T15:28:53","modified_gmt":"2021-03-09T15:28:53","slug":"new-whatsapp-privacy-policy-shares-data-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outofsite.biz\/cynance\/new-whatsapp-privacy-policy-shares-data-facebook\/","title":{"rendered":"New WhatsApp Privacy Policy Publicly Acknowledges Facebook Data Sharing"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"7139\" class=\"elementor elementor-7139\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-45e0897e elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"45e0897e\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-2a13f229\" data-id=\"2a13f229\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-264884f6 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"264884f6\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.11.5 - 14-03-2023 *\/\n.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#818a91;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#818a91;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\t<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The new <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.whatsapp.com\/legal\/updates\/privacy-policy\/?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">WhatsApp privacy policy<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> released this week raised several key questions for data protection experts everywhere (and everyone else really). The new privacy policy sets out the information that WhatsApp shares with Facebook, and makes it clear that this policy is non-negotiable &#8211; if you don\u2019t like WhatsApp sharing your data with Facebook, your only option is to close your WhatsApp account and delete your app (making sure to delete your personal information first).\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In effect, the new WhatsApp privacy policy brings WhatsApp\u2019s two billion users under more of Facebook\u2019s control, and opens them up to more of Facebook\u2019s services. The question is whether this will be a steep price for people to pay to continue to keep in touch with family and friends on their favourite chat app.<\/span><\/p><h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What does the new WhatsApp privacy policy say?<\/span><\/h2><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The section of the new WhatsApp privacy policy that concerns us is <\/span><b>How we partner with Facebook to offer integrations across the Facebook Company Products<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What this section of the new WhatsApp privacy policy means is that Facebook are now covering themselves for collecting huge amounts of personal data about users from WhatsApp (which they were probably already collecting). The information that is shared between WhatsApp and Facebook includes your WhatsApp account registration and WhatsApp phone number, the phone numbers in your address book, the WhatsApp groups you have joined, transaction data, mobile device information, the IP address of your phone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In other words, nearly all the information you provide to WhatsApp in order to use their services (and a few more too) will be passed through to Facebook. The new WhatsApp privacy policy also reserves the right to ask (or demand) more information in the future as it becomes useful for them.<\/span><\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In turn, Facebook will use this information to \u201cunderstand how services are used\u201d, \u201cimprove services\u201d, \u201cmake suggestions for you\u201d, \u201cpersonalise features and content\u201d, and \u201cshow relevant offers and ads across the Facebook Company Products\u201d. In short, find other Facebook services to sell to you based on your information, for example connecting Facebook Pay to pay for transactions on WhatsApp, or chatting with your WhatsApp contacts on Portal (yet another Facebook product).<\/span><\/p><h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The concern: Facebook and data protection are not mutually compatible<\/span><\/h2><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The data mentioned in the new WhatsApp privacy policy is PII, or personally identifiable\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">information. This means that if someone gets hold of that information they can work out who you are pretty quickly, and Facebook\u2019s data protection record makes some interesting reading.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just some of the recent Facebook and data protection stories include:<\/span><\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2019 they were <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-49099364\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">fined $5bn by the Federal Trade Commission<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (FTC) and an additional \u00a3500,000 in the UK under the old Data Protection Act (pre-GDPR) for their part in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The FTC said in their settlement statement that the fine was levied on Facebook because despite promising users that they have control over how their personal information is shared with third parties, they facilitated the harvesting of information from Facebook to Cambridge Analytica. In this case, a Facebook quiz was used to collect information not just about the people who took the test, but their Facebook friends as well. The way that this information was collected was part of a flaw in Facebook\u2019s infrastructure, which allowed developers to access information without authorisation (and many did).\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2018 it was revealed that between 2011 and 2018 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/facebook-is-giving-advertisers-access-to-your-shadow-co-1828476051\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Facebook used phone numbers<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> registered by users for two factor authentication to target them for ads. In addition to these phone numbers, the researchers discovered that Facebook was also mining other information about users available on the internet (and not provided directly to Facebook), and using it to target ads.<\/span><\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the same time as the FTC gave their ruling on Facebook\u2019s involvement with Cambridge Analytica, the US Securities and Exchange Commision (SEC) claimed $100 million in charges against Facebook for making misleading disclosures regarding how it handled user data. And in 2018, a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/12\/18\/technology\/facebook-privacy.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">report by the New York Times<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> revealed that Facebook shared access to user data with other large tech firms, including Amazon, Microsoft, Sony, Huawei, Yandex, and more, affecting users all over the world.<\/span><\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The list goes on, showing how Facebook\u2019s quest for user information that can be used to make a profit is constantly evolving and finding new ways to violate users\u2019 privacy.<\/span><\/p><h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Facebook and information protection responsibilities<\/span><\/h2><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Under regulations such as the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/outofsite.biz\/cynance\/security-risk-and-compliance\/privacy-data-protection-gdpr\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">GDPR<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other nation states (for example the newly non-EU UK), companies of all sizes have responsibilities towards their users when it comes to collecting, storing, transferring, or using their personal information. Failure to take these responsibilities seriously will result in fines of up to \u20ac10m, or 2% of global turnover (whichever is higher). While fines don\u2019t seem to stop Facebook, they are a serious deterrent to other companies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The new WhatsApp privacy policy shows that once again, Facebook is pushing the boundaries on data privacy, and could well find itself catching the attention of one or more of these regulators. But for now, WhatsApp is one step closer to dying. Long live Facebook.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The new WhatsApp privacy policy released this week raised several key questions for data protection experts everywhere (and everyone else really). The new privacy policy sets out the information that WhatsApp shares with Facebook, and makes it clear that this policy is non-negotiable &#8211; if you don\u2019t like WhatsApp sharing your data with Facebook, your&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":7154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[63,62],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outofsite.biz\/cynance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7139"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outofsite.biz\/cynance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outofsite.biz\/cynance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outofsite.biz\/cynance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outofsite.biz\/cynance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outofsite.biz\/cynance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outofsite.biz\/cynance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outofsite.biz\/cynance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outofsite.biz\/cynance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outofsite.biz\/cynance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}