Facebook and WhatsApp: guarantor for the German privacy is at risk - The Press

With the acquisition of the messaging service, Zuckerberg may have access to directories than 450 million users. A petition in Italy

The purchase of the popular messaging app WhatsApp by Facebook has not only aroused amazement at the amount paid – less than 19 billion dollars. He also renewed concerns about the (lack of) privacy policy periodically that the company founded by Mark Zuckerberg causes with its trade policies.

To most observers it appears clear that this surprise move by Facebook is not only served to get rid of a dangerous competitor, but also to get their hands on an important piece needed to complete the profiling of users: phone books . The latter were the main assets of the messaging service, with its 450 million users and related conversations: the mechanism of registration of WhatsApp, indeed, to operate requires that entering the number of the phone where the app is installed.

Someone has expressed his concern in a low voice: others, such as the Guarantor for the protection of personal data in Schleswig-Holstein, Thilo Weichert, on the other hand have made a lot of noise, with positions taken quite decided. “Who cares about the confidentiality of their communications – Weichert wrote on his website – must rely on trust services. The only ones to provide it are companies that are based in countries where there is an effective system of data protection. ” The guarantor has cited as a model two Swiss companies, and MyEnigma Threema, as he pointed out that the sensitivity on this issue in the United States, home to WhatsApp is that Facebook, is rather limited. “These services – said still Weichert – refuse to comply with the European and German privacy and also access the NSA’s communications is facilitated by the purchase.” A full-scale attack to Facebook, in fact, not entirely unexpected given the precedents – the guarantor of Schleswig-Holstein has several times had to say in the past with the social network, but new for virulence. It also signals a petition in Italy, to draw the attention of the Privacy Guarantor on any negative aspects that the acquisition could have WhatsApp users.

So far the

Zuckerberg’s social network is managed to escape repeated requests to submit to German privacy regulations, arguing that the person responsible for the processing of data at European level is its Irish subsidiary, which would therefore be subject to the law of that country. So far, Facebook has appeared in court twice in Germany, in one case the Court gave him reason, he lost another instead. Diatribe, therefore, is still open.

on WhatsApp, however, the judgment of the guarantor has been very severe Weichert recalled how last year the Dutch developer has discovered a flaw in the very disturbing encryption mechanism used by the application: a vulnerability that could potentially be exploited by an attacker to read the contents of all the conversations exchanged. The company’s response to this revelation was, according to the guarantor “dull and unconvincing.” In a statement on their website, the developers of WhatsApp have not addressed the issue of the possible incorporation of their data assets by Facebook, but said that users “will not change anything.”