You should be worried about how much info WhatsApp shares with Facebook
It’s the messaging app that connects a quarter of the world’s population, but many Americans still have haven’t heard of WhatsApp. That’s because most phone plans in the United States provide a standard flat rate for texting that allows people to communicate freely within the country. But throughout much of the world, including many of the world’s poorest countries, people are charged for every single message they send and receive.
That is why, since its launch in 2009, WhatsApp has become a vital resource for billions of people – and they are prepared to defend it. When the Lebanese government tried to bring in a “WhatsApp tax”, charging $0.20 daily for calls made on the app, it helped trigger the mass protests that swept the country in 2019.
One thing that does connect Americans to WhatsApp users, however, is Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and his flagrant disregard for data privacy. Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014 in a move to consolidate control over global communications. Now Zuckerberg is moving ahead with a change to WhatsApp’s privacy policy that aims to commercialize our communications in order to feed Facebook’s insatiable greed.
At the time of WhatsApp’s purchase in 2014, the app did not collect phone numbers, metadata, or other contact information. Facebook promised to keep it this way. “We are absolutely not going to change plans around WhatsApp and the way it uses user data,” Zuckerberg claimed. “WhatsApp is going to operate completely autonomously.”
Yet on 15 May, when Zuckerberg implements a new privacy update, this will be just one more in a series of his broken promises on data privacy. In 2016, WhatsApp implemented an update to its terms and conditions that allowed data like a user’s phone number to be shared with Facebook. Users were technically given 30 days’ notice to opt out. However, many were unaware of the possible opt-out and missed the small window in which they could do so, while the approximately one billion users who joined since were given no choice at all.
WhatsApp announced its latest privacy update in January, with changes initially meant to take effect on 8 February. However, a popular outcry pushed the date back to 15 May, with Facebook no doubt hoping that public outrage would fade, paving the way for a quiet implementation.
But public outrage has not faded. And so Facebook has opted for a familiar tactic: sow confusion and force through its new policy change anyway. The company is pestering WhatsApp users to accept the policy change by 15 May or, under a new opaque timeframe, a few additional weeks. Those who ignore or refuse the decision will lose access to basic WhatsApp functioning.
Time is now running for Zuckerberg to reverse course in this latest assault on global communications – and protect the privacy of all WhatsApp users at this critical hour for democracy and dissent around the world.
Facebook, for its part, has spent the months since the announcement downplaying the significance of these privacy updates by arguing that its latest changes will only affect communication with business accounts (WhatsApp Business was launched in January 2018). In truth, the changes will allow Facebook to collect payment and transaction data from WhatsApp users, meaning Facebook will be able to gather even more data and target users with ever more personalized ads.
WhatsApp has also removed a passage in its privacy policy about opting out of sharing data with Facebook. Facebook argues that this simply reflects what’s been in place since 2016. That is exactly the problem.Today’s WhatsApp shares a great deal of information with Facebook it promised it wouldn’t, including account information, phone numbers, how often and how long people use WhatsApp, information about how they interact with other users, IP addresses, browser details, language, time zone, etc. This latest incursion has highlighted just how much data sharing has been going on for years without most users’ knowledge.
Facebook is again abusing its monopoly position and counting on a lack of options to make sure it can extract even more wealth from WhatsApp. And this time there is no opting out. As part of an ongoing 2020 lawsuit filed by 48 states and districts of the United States against Facebook, in large part due to its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, New York attorney general Letitia James has argued: “Instead of competing on the merits, Facebook used its powers to suppress competition so it could take advantage of users and make billions by converting personal data into a cash cow.”
This isn’t the case for Europeans, though, among whom WhatsApp is also extremely popular. Europeans’ privacy is protected thanks to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. Meanwhile, in India, where more than 400 million people use WhatsApp, the Delhi high court is petitioning Facebook to provide an opt-out option. The plea in the high court is simply a request that WhatsApp provide the same privacy standards to its Indian users as it provides to those in the EU. Policymakers around the world have a duty to follow suit and protect citizens from encroachments that discriminate against users in the developing world.
We cannot let Mark Zuckerberg’s use one of the world’s most important messaging services as his latest data goldmine. May 15 is fast approaching. We must ensure a right to privacy for all. We can begin by putting a stop to Facebook’s latest move against WhatsApp users. But Facebook has shown, once again, that when it comes to data exploitation there are no promises it won’t break. Given Facebook’s business model, predicated on privacy invasion and consumer exploitation, Facebook should never have been allowed to acquire WhatsApp. The time to break up Facebook has come. The time to act is now.
Burcu Kilic directs Digital Rights Program at Public Citizen. Sophia Crabbe-Field is associate editor at Democracy: A Journal of Ideas