European regulators question US tech companies over privacy issues
29 Oct 2016
European regulators are now questioning US tech companies over privacy issues after raising issues with their tax arrangements.
Data protection officials across Europe harboured "serious concerns" over WhatsApp telling users their personal details, including phone numbers, would be shared with Facebook.
In August, the messaging app, which boasts 1 billion members changed its privacy policy to allow it to share customer information with parent company, Facebook.
In response to the changes, the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party (W29), which formed part of the EC and had representatives from each EU state, had written to WhatsApp founder Jan Koum to ask it to not share data with Facebook at the moment.
In the letter, Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, the chairman of the group, said WhatsApp should not share personal data with Facebook "until the appropriate legal protections can be assured".
Falque-Pierrotin added that a working group of W29 would look at the privacy policy changes to determine whether the changes were in line with European data protection rules. The French data protection regulator, CNIL first published the letter.
''We're working with data protection authorities to address their questions,'' WhatsApp said in an e-mailed statement, Bloomberg reported. ''We've had constructive conversations, including before our update, and we remain committed to respecting applicable law.''
Separately, the EU panel told Yahoo! Inc to notify all concerned users of adverse effects following the hacking of accounts in 2014 by cyber-criminals.
The Article 29 Working Party added that it was also concerned about the alleged scanning of Yahoo customers' incoming e-mails for US intelligence purposes at the request of US agencies and asked the company to provide information on the legal basis and the compatibility with EU law of any such activity.
The privacy watchdogs would discuss both issues in the first meeting of their enforcement subgroup in November.