Privacy Infringement: European privacy regulators to scrutinize WhatsApp privacy switch - by E.Auchard and A.Wendlandt

Is your personal Data Safe?

Facebook's move to relax the privacy policy of WhatsApp, the world's most popular mobile messaging application, will be closely scrutinized, the chair of Europe's leading group of privacy regulators said on Monday.

WhatsApp, which counts more than a billion users globally, said on Thursday it would start sharing users' phone numbers with Facebook, helping it to target advertisements and friend recommendations across the social media network.

It said WhatsApp users could choose not to share their account information with Facebook.

 "Each European authority will be following the changes made to WhatApp's privacy policy with great vigilance," CNIL, the French data protection commission, and the current chair of the G29 or Article 29 Working Party of European privacy regulators, said in a statement on behalf of the region-wide group.

"What is at stake is the control of individual users over their own data when they are combined by major Internet players."

The G29 is made up of representatives of the data protection authorities of each of Europe's 28-member states, the European Data Protection Supervisor and the European Commission.

Facebook paid more than $19 billion to acquire WhatsApp, an advertising-free service for sharing texts, pictures and videos with friends and acquaintances. At the time of the deal in 2014, WhatsApp founder Jan Koum vowed to protect data of its users and said the deal would not affect its privacy policy.

In response, Britain's data privacy regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), said it was monitoring the changes to ensure that the new policy stays within data protection laws

The French data protection authority is studying Facebook's response earlier this month to issues the regulator has raised over the company's handling of customer data for targeting advertising to the social network's members.

By Monday several European media including France Info and Switzerland's Le Temps warned readers about the policy change and gave them tips on how to avoid letting WhatsApp handing over their phone number to Facebook.

A CNIL spokeswoman said WhatsApp's privacy policy was likely to be discussed at a planned G29 meeting at the end of the month attended by representatives of each European national privacy regulator.   - Reuters Report

EU-Digest

Social Media: Apple, Google, Microsoft unite against NSA spying program but do they have "clean hands" themselves?

US Freedom act letter reports that the top US tech companies are sharpening their blades in their battle with the National Security Agency. While they've been doggedly asking for transparency on the agency's mass surveillance program for months, they're now calling for reform.

Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, and AOL penned a letter (pdf) to the lead members of the Senate Judiciary Committee recently urging the lawmakers to substantially reform the NSA surveillance practices. The companies also asked for additional oversight and accountability mechanisms for the spying programs.

If one digs a little deeper into this several questions arise.

Have, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and other IT done this as a calculated PR move to focus their customers attention and Public entities like the EU Commission away from their own privacy issues with these companies to the NSA, today's favorite whipping boy?

Let us not forget that Google may have gotten out of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) antitrust investigation without much of a penalty earlier this year, but the European Commission is still after them for a variety of issues.It is well known that Google has been in hot water around the world for collecting Wi-Fi data using its Street View vehicles.

German regulators say that Google's vehicles already captured data such as the contents of e-mails, passwords, photos, and chat protocols using its cars between 2008 and 2010.

Microsoft Corp has been recently fined 561 million euros ($731 million) for failing to offer users a choice of web browser, an unprecedented sanction that will act as a warning to other firms involved in EU antitrust disputes.

It said the U.S. software company had broken a legally binding commitment made in 2009 to the EU which ensured that consumers had a choice of how they access the internet, rather than defaulting to Microsoft's Explorer browser.

As to Apple. Carriers throughout Europe have sent information regarding their contracts with Apple to the European Commission saying that Apple's rules for carrying the iPhone are anticompetitive.

While Apple's terms are different from carrier to carrier, a major complaint from the European carriers is that Apple forces them to sell a certain amount of iPhones over a determined amount of time. If the carrier does not meet this quota, then they must pay Apple for the unsold devices.

This isn't Apple's first run-in with the European Commission. In December 2011, Apple and book publishers Penguin, Harper Collins (News Corp., USA), Simon & Schuster (CBS Corp., USA), Hachette Livre (Lagardère Publishing France) and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holzbrinck (owner of inter-alia Macmillan, Germany) were under the microscope when the EU found out about their selling practices.

It is essential say lawmakers that when new laws are drawn up regarding privacy, protection of information, anti-trust abuses etc., these laws must cover all  the players, without exception, from both the Private and Public sector. 

Bottom line: In the meantime people who live in glass houses shouldn’t be throwing stones.  

EU-Digest