The Hamburg Commissioner ordered Facebook to stop stealing WhatsApp data

German regulators, The Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information has ordered Facebook to stop collecting data from WhatsApp and to delete all data that has already been forwarded. 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.

Facebook has been collected the data since last month from the company they bought in 2014 with acquisition worth $22 billion in order to give people a better experience upon its social networking. The German regulator does not like it as their concern  of privacy breaching of about 35 million WhatsApp users in Germany.

This administrative order protects the data of about 35 million WhatsApp users in Germany. It has to be their decision, whether they want to connect their account with Facebook.  Therefore, they has to ask for their permission in advance. This has not happened.

– Johannes Caspar, the Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information,

The company responded that only small scale of data has been collected. They must respect German data protection law after the ECJ confirmed in its ruling from July, that national data protection laws are applicable if a company processes data in connection with a national subsidiary.

Pokdepinion: Regarding this matter, will it trigger other countries to force Facebook to stop the data gathering. How will our government react to this issue?