Despite the new terms of use, Germany prohibits Facebook from processing data from its subsidiary. Facebook itself says the statement is wrong.
WhatsApp comes with new terms of use. From now on, these allow parent company Facebook to process more data from WhatsApp. On the one hand, that is a sensitive issue because users have no choice; who does not accept them can hardly use WhatsApp in the long term. On the other hand, Facebook collects a great deal of data from its users, whereby the list of associated privacy scandals is gradually becoming endless.
The German data regulator has now decided that Facebook may not process that data for German users; the new terms of use are illegal according to the country.
The decision comes after an emergency procedure by the data protection authority of the German federal state of Hamburg, which among the federal German states mainly focuses on Facebook.
“This injunction should ensure the rights and freedoms of millions of users if they agree to the terms in Germany.” Said Johannes Caspar, Hamburg data protection officer, according to Reuters. ‘The aim is to prevent disadvantages and damage associated with such a black-box procedure’, says Johannes Caspar, data protection officer of the state of Hamburg.
Facebook reacts with incomprehension to the decision, saying that it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding about the purpose and effect of the data collection. The company believes the ban is not legitimate.
Because the claims made by Hamburg’s DPA are false, the injunction will have no impact on the ongoing rollout of the update. We remain committed to providing secure and private communications for everyone,” a WhatsApp spokesperson told Reuters.
Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014 for $ 19 billion. At that time, critical questions already arose about the data that Facebook received. Facebook kept the two, especially within Europe, entirely separate for the time being, but there is little choice nowadays. Whoever uses Whatsapp undeniably also gives Facebook insight into who you are talking to, how often, at what times and other metadata.
