a record fine of 50 million euros?

You are probably familiar with the subject if you read us regularly. This is one of the hot files for the start of 2021, and we will quickly summarize the matter for you. WhatsApp announced in early January an important and mandatory change to its terms of use. Thanks to this new policy, the instant messaging service will share certain personal data of users with Facebook, its parent company.

The announcement caused a scandal and users decided to migrate by the thousands to competitors like Signal or Telegram. History to stop the bleeding, WhatsApp specifies that European users will not have to share their data with Facebook, under the GDPR, the general data protection regulation.

In a final attempt to reassure users, WhatsApp has finally detailed in a blog post the data it will share with Facebook. In reality, only user conversations with companies will be likely to be collected, in order to improve advertising targeting in particular.

Ireland actively investigates Facebook and WhatsApp

However, and as we learned from our colleagues at the Numerama site, the Irish data protection authority, the DPC (for Data Protection Commission), is currently carrying out an investigation for determine if Facebook and WhatsApp have violated the transparency requirements imposed by the GDPR. It should be noted that the institution is in charge of the investigation, because the head office of Facebook (and by extension of WhatsApp) is located in Ireland.

This investigation was not motivated by recent controversies. It was initiated when Facebook chose to modify the WhatsApp terms of use to allow the sharing of certain user data. Data previously excluded from any collection. Depending on the results of the investigation, the DPC may be able to impose a record fine on WhatsApp, the amount of which could be set between 30 and 50 million euros.

Everything will depend on the findings of the IPC and the opinion of other European protection authorities, which due to the importance of Facebook, have a right to inspect the amount of the fine. In addition to this hefty sanction, the DPC could also demand that Facebook review the way it uses the data of European users protected by the GDPR. The decision of the DPC is awaited for the end of the year 2021 at the very least.

To protect yourself from incursion, we advise you to stop using GAFAM services such as WhatsApp and Gmail for example and to opt for Signal and an encrypted Webmail such as ProtonMail from 5 € / month (the free version is limited to 500MB). This Swiss company founded by scientists from CERN is also at the origin of ProtonVPN : a service that will encrypt all of your connections from € 4 / month. For a cheaper and equally serious VPN, CyberGhost offers an unbeatable plan at 2 € / month. You have all the cards in hand …

Source: Numerama