Comment by znpy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by znpy | Hacker News Reader

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You're right indeed.

I was just looking through my google drive and there's no trace of my whatsapp chat backups. Even after running another backup. And pages online confirm what you're saying.

I guess I'll have to use my GDPR rights.

Interestingly enough, there only is the possibility of exporting account information info, but the information page about that procedure explicitly says that messages are not included.

That's relevant because since there's no other procedure to export data, this means that Whatsapp is already not okay with GDPR procedures.

edit (2): I just sent an email to Whatsapp via their contact page (https://www.whatsapp.com/contact/?subject=messenger) asking for my data in accordance with GDPR. Let's see what happens.

Facebook doesn't hold your chat data. As soon as message reaches recipient(s) it is deleted. That's why Whatsapp nags you every year about making a google drive backup (it archives data from your phone to drive, not sends it from its servers to drive). So no GDPR could resurrect your chats and it is not violation because they don't have such data.

The right to easily export your data still applies, Facebook has my messages on my phone storage and I should be able to easily export them without third party solutions.

> Facebook has my messages on my phone storage

No, you have your messages on your phone. You just don't have your messages in a way you want.

The GDPR asks for more than access, it also mandates an easy export. I have recently learned that this feature is actually implemented on a chat by chat basis.

Personally I would like a global export option too, but I am not going to die on that hill.

>this means that Whatsapp is already not okay with GDPR procedures.

No it doesn't, the data is local to your phone and not in their systems or servers. So you already have your data on a device you control. GDPR is not about local data inter-op.

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