European Union will be looking into Facebook´s WhatsApp policy update
The social media giant is facing problems after trying to alter its privacy policies.
The EU's lengthy investigation into the transparency of data exchange between Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) and WhatsApp is about to be settled. This comes after the Irish Data Protection Commission's confirmation that it sent a draft decision to other EU data protection authorities in late 2020. After confirmation, the other DPAs can now initiate a review process of the decision. According to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the proposal of the EU data supervisory authority must be supported by a majority before a decision can be made. The draft DPC, mailed to other regulators on December 24th, is the second such notice the Irish regulator has issued on matters affecting cross-border GDPR cases. The regulator fined Twitter $ 500,000 for a security breach. However, the Twiter case was straightforward in terms of a data breach compared to the complexity of assessing transparency in the Facebook case. The DPC indicated that once the process is complete and a final decision is made, it will be easier for people to know the standard that WhatsApp should follow under the EU GDPR. The investigation into the exchange of data between WhatsApp and Facebook seems timely after the recent criticism of the updates to the terms and conditions, but dates back to 2018, when the GDPR came into force. Following the backlash and the upcoming investigation, WhatsApp has postponed its privacy policy update from February 8th to May 15th. The update affected features that enable users to interact and send messages with companies on WhatsApp and Facebook. In a statement, WhatsApp said they heard concerns about the recent updates with so much misinformation. This has raised concerns among users and WhatsApp is ready to help users understand the facts and principles of the social side. Facebook announced last year that it would allow WhatsApp companies to store and manage messages on Facebook's hosting network. A WhatsApp spokesperson said they will continue to work with the IDPC while they await the final decision.