With rising concern over cybersecurity and privacy about the world, a move by SA’s Information Regulator, the custodian of privacy laws in the country, may point to the type of difficulty companies such as Facebook encounter in implementing changes to their platforms in future.
Last week, the regulator said Facebook cannot share any contact information it collects from WhatsApp users with its other properties without first obtaining permission from the agency.
This comes as WhatsApp, the world largest instant messaging service, and its parent, Facebook, have been facing a backlash since the start of the year after proposed changes to its privacy policy. The changes would see WhatsApp sharing more data with Facebook’s other companies, such as Messenger and Instagram.
Once upon a time it was quite simple for technology companies such as Facebook, Amazon and Google to issue updates to their various platforms that users would have little to no control over. But the tide seems to be turning.
Though WhatsApp has been clear that messages and calls are still private, users have voiced their concern, forcing the implementation to shift from February to May.
Beyond the guidelines given by the Information Regulator, the company founded by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg has been accused of treating the SA market differently to Europe, where users seem to have greater protection. The regulator raised as a central concern that citizens of the EU will receive “significantly higher privacy protection than people in SA and Africa”, though local privacy legislation is modelled after that in Europe.
While public pressure has done much to change Facebook’s approach to the matter, there is a distinct possibility that, as with the EU and SA, regulators will have the final say on what WhatsApp can and cannot do.
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