A German privacy watchdog today ruled that Facebook has to immediately stop storing and using data of the about 35 million German users of its messaging app WhatsApp. Facebook is also ordered to delete all data that has already been forwarded by WhatsApp.
Facebook acquired WhatsApp in February 2014 for $19 billion an until recently the data of Facebook and WhatsApp users was strictly separated. However, Facebook recently changed its privacy policy so a data exchange between the social network and the messaging app became possible.
The contents of chats isn't shared with Facebook, but WhatsApp will share other data with Facebook such as the phone number of the user. That change isn't allowed, according to the German privacy watchdog.
"After the acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook two years ago, both parties have publicly assured that data will not be shared between them. The fact that this is now happening is not only a misleading of their users and the public, but also constitutes an infringement of national data protection law", the watchdog writes in its ruling.
Facebook is also being watched by other European privacy watchdogs. A group of privacy watchdogs representing 28 European Union member states previously noted it watches the recent changes with "extreme vigilance".
Facebook will appeal the ruling and stated it will cooperate with the privacy watchdog with the aim to answer questions and take away any possible worries.
