A hot potato: Deutschland has banned Facebook from collecting data on WhatsApp users within its borders. The Hamburg Data Protection and Liberty of Data (HmbBfDI) commission claims that the app'southward new data collection policies and Facebook's heavy-handed efforts to get users to accept them violate the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Update (05/13/21): A WhatsApp spokesman reached out to TechSpot to clarify that the Hamburg DPA order does not bear on the WhatsApp update every bit the DPA is raising concerns about information processing by Facebook that is not currently happening, and is not planned as function of this update.

The original story follows below:

Johannes Caspar, the commissioner of the HmbBfDI, indicated in a press release that Facebook has a history of user-privacy abuse, pointing to the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the recent leak of 500 million records. More urgently, Caspar fears that WhatsApp's less than transparent advertizing policies will influence German elections coming up in September.

"The data protection scandals of the last few years from 'Cambridge Analytica' to the data leak that recently became known, which affected more than 500 million Facebook users, evidence the extent and the dangers of massive profiling," said Caspar. "This affects non only privacy merely besides the possibility of using profiles to influence voter decisions in order to manipulate autonomous decisions. In view of the nearly sixty million WhatsApp users with a view to the upcoming federal elections in Deutschland in September 2022, the risk is all the more physical, as these will arouse desires after influencing the opinion-forming of Facebook'due south advertisers."

The HmbBfDI has issued a three-month emergency injunction on WhatsApp's data collection. In the meantime, information technology has asked the European Data Protection Committee (EDPC) to decide the case at the "European level." If the EDPC finds that WhatsApp violates the GDPR, a more permanent ban that applies to fellow member states, besides as Deutschland, will likely go into effect until WhatsApp changes its policies.

Facebook denies any wrongdoing. A spokesperson told Bloomberg the committee'south emergency gild is based on a "fundamental misunderstanding" of WhatsApp's terms and weather condition. Facebook intends to roll out the new rules despite the ban.

Afterward attempting to downplay its data drove policy, Facebook threatened to delete users accounts if they did not agree to the terms. All the same, after severe backlash, the social media giant dialed back the threat, opting to bombard the user with nagging consent popups instead. Continuing to ignore the "reminders" would effect in the app gradually losing cardinal features until it was all but useless. Users take until May 15 to hold to the new weather.

This is not the starting time time Caspar has butted heads with WhatsApp. In 2022, the commissioner demanded Facebook finish collecting user data from WhatsApp. In that case, Facebook worked with Germany to iron things out. It does not appear that the social media platform is willing to cooperate this fourth dimension.

Paradigm credit: Siraj Ahmad