Paris (AFP)
The popular Whatsapp messaging app came under fire on Thursday for asking its roughly two billion users to agree to new terms of service, allowing it to share more data with its parent company Facebook.
Users who decline will no longer be able to access their account from February 8.
According to Facebook, changes to Whatsapp's terms of service and privacy policy allow it to develop a strategy presented in October, aimed at making its messaging an application geared towards corporate customer service.
The group is seeking to monetize its platform by allowing advertisers to contact their customers via Whatsapp, or even sell their products directly there, as is already the case in India.
"Updates to privacy policies are common in the industry and we are providing users with all the information they need to verify the changes that will take effect on February 8," a spokesperson for the group said in a statement to the company. 'AFP.
According to the company, the data that can be shared between Whatsapp and Facebook's application ecosystem (including Instagram and Messenger) includes contacts and profile information, with the exception of message content which remains encrypted.
But the new conditions differ between the European Union and the rest of the world.
In the case of the EU and the UK, they will only be used to expand the functionality offered to WhatsApp Business accounts, the company told AFP.
"WhatsApp does not share the data of its users in Europe with Facebook in order for Facebook to use them to improve its products or its advertisements," assured a spokesperson for the messaging service.
Asked by AFP, the National Commission for Information Technology and Liberties (Cnil) recalled that an investigation had been underway since 2017 on the consequences of the takeover of Whatsapp by Facebook for $ 22 billion in 2014, including the conditions for data transfer .
The investigation was supported in 2018 by the Irish regulator following the entry into force of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), specifies the CNIL which ensures that "this file should find a solution in 2021".
Asked Thursday on the subject, European Commission spokespersons recalled that Facebook was fined 110 million euros in 2017 for providing inaccurate information during the EU investigation into its takeover of the WhatsApp mobile application, and which the European executive preferred to use for its internal needs the competing application Signal.
© 2021 AFP