Facebook and WhatsApp Banned From Sharing Data in Germany

Two social networking applications Facebook and WhatsApp were officially banned from sharing data to each other in Germany.

The issue about privacy has made Facebook and WhatsApp users worried and outraged about their privacy when WhatsApp announced in August that they will start sharing their user's data to Facebook to help its ads, and generate more information about it's users according to the Independent.

This started a controversy in Germany and users protested that sharing such information should not be allowed in respect of their privacy. This was also a shame for WhatsApp because they announced before that they will not use such platform for ads and committed to keep its user's information private.

In line with this, the Hamburg data protection commissioner issued an administrative order which officially bans WhatsApp from sharing data to Facebook in Germany. The administrative order effective immediately, prohibits Facebook from storing data and information from its users across Germany.

The watchdog also demanded Facebook to delete all data that were collected and stored from WhatsApp before the order was released.

They also added that there were no user agreements issued to WhatsApp and Facebook users about the data sharing which made the transaction between the two companies illegal.

According to Johannes Caspar, the Hamburg commissioner for data protection and freedom of information, the order was made to protect the privacy and the rights of the 35million WhatsApp and Facebook users in Germany.

He also added that it has to be the user's discretion if they want to link their Facebook account to their WhatsApp account and there should be a user agreement before they took action about it, which they said that never happened, according to BetaNews.

"In addition, there are many millions of people whose contact details were uploaded to WhatsApp from the user's address books, although they might not even have a connection to Facebook or WhatsApp. According to Facebook, this gigantic amount of data has not yet been collected," Caspar said.

"Facebook's answer, that this has merely not been done for the time being, is cause for concern that the gravity of the data protection breach will have a much more severe impact," he added.