France gives WhatsApp a month to stop transferring user data to Facebook

The French National Assignment writing service uk Commission for Information Technology and Liberties (CNIL) has demanded that WhatsApp stop sharing data about its users with its parent company, Facebook, within a month. The French agency has ensured that this transfer of information between companies violates the Data Protection Law of the country.  In a statement released yesterday the CNIL has ensured that WhatsApp refused to offer a sample of data from French users that are transferred to Facebook, arguing that having its headquarters in the United States, it can only be subject to the legislation of this country. In this way, the gala commission has understood that the application has committed a "violation of its obligation to cooperate" that establishes Article 21 of the French Data Protection Law.  In this way, the CNIL has decided to formally notify WhatsApp that it has a month to comply with this law, and also questions that the messaging "app" contributes to increase the amount of information that Facebook has at its disposal ", among which includes data from people not registered in the social network.  If WhatsApp does not comply with the requirement, the CNIL will commission an "internal investigator" to draft a report where the imposition of a "sanction against the company" will be proposed.

The CNIL has recalled that the WP29 - European conglomerate of homologous organizations - requested explanations to the messaging application before having updated this Terms of Service and its Privacy Policy in August 2016, to transfer data from its users to Facebook with directed advertising, security and improvement of services. WP29 also demanded at that time to stop sending data for advertising purposes.

WhatsApp defends itself :

WhatsApp assured the CNIL that the data its ten million users in France "had never been processed" with this objective. However, the French agency detected "violations" of the Data Protection Law of the country, since it verified that WhatsApp does transfer to its parent company information of its users for 'business intelligence' and for security reasons, among which find phone numbers or usage habits of the application. someone to write a research paper According to the CNIL, the security reasons "seem to be essential" for the efficient operation of WhatsApp, but "this is not the case of 'business intelligence' purposes, whose objective is to improve performance and optimize the use of the application" through the analysis of the behavior of its users ". Thus, the transfer of data to Facebook for this purpose "is not based on the legal basis required by the Data Protection Law for any processing," the entity has indicated.  The French commission has affirmed that "neither the consent of the users, nor the legitimate interest of WhatsApp" can be used as arguments in favor of this process, since it understands that the approval of the transfer of information is not requested in a manner " specific "to the users. In addition, he has assured that this sending of data does not offer the "adequate" guarantees that "preserve the interest or fundamental freedoms" of the users, since there is no mechanism that allows them to reject it, beyond uninstalling the application itself.  After the change of its Terms of Service and its Privacy Policy, the European Union demanded that WhatsApp in October 2016 not continue with the exchange of data with Facebook. The application responded to this warning that no transfer had started. Previously, the Spanish Agency for Data Protection (AEPD) initiated an official investigation that same month to examine the communications of personal data made between the 'app' and its parent company.