WhatsApp Privacy Policy update for people in the European Region | Hacker News Reader

WhatsApp Privacy Policy update for people in the European Region

faq.whatsapp.com

41 pointsmt_19 comments

> We’re updating our Privacy Policy for our users, at the direction of our lead European data protection regulator, the Irish Data Protection Commission.

You can practically hear them gritting their teeth while writing this.

They claim they didn't have to change anything though?

> This update does not change the way we operate our service, including how we process, use or share your data with anyone, including our parent company Meta.

The investigation into WhatsApp was scoped solely to problems with its privacy policy, and how important information was either confusing or missing. The investigation explicitly did not address how data was processed, merely WhatsApp's obligation to inform users about certain aspects of how their data was handled.

Within that limited Scope, WhatsApp was fined 225 million Euros for those deficiencies, which is still the second-largest GDPR fine to date.

Yes it is kind of discriminating if you are among the 2% of cases where the Irish DPA does something [1]... I sometimes find myself thinking this is rather paid propaganda to make the Irish DPA actually look mean (in a positive way for them)

[1] https://www.iccl.ie/digital-data/2021-gdpr-report/

Is there a changelog? I would love a website that has like a diff view for privacy policy updates. Same with for proposed legislation.

Codeberg does this: https://codeberg.org/Codeberg/org/commit/5f0b5ee23464163ea2b...

I'm not aware of any platform like that, but I know something similar which is https://tosdr.org/

They don't even have published the changes online yet, it seems: https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/privacy-policy-eea/revisions

You can probably clean the page with some kind of html2text tool and then use your favourite diffing tool to see what's changed.

It is not very clear to me what data they are mining, but for sure they are doing something, all their business is build around that.

If this triggers popups/modals in the app again: Signal outage incoming (due to overload).

I think there was just a little banner at the top of chats. I've seen it once, then it disappeared on its own.

I am sure there will be an upward migration for Telegram now. Signal for those who prefer it. Threema, surprisingly, doesn't get any mention here.

I don’t perceive Threema to have a significant network in the US, which is where a lot of HN’s user base is from.

Checking the iOS App Store I see they charge $4 upfront for the app, which must hinder its chances of adoption in new circles.

I do like the idea of paying for software, but it’s tough to succeed with it where large networks draw the life out of smaller ones.

I’d like to be corrected, though—I know the security has a solid reputation.

Moving from WhatsApp to Telegram seems like a downgrade to me.

How so? Because it doesn’t have E2E encryption on by default?

I'm not deep in to the technology and politics of telegram but I don't use it exactly because I know that letting the default be insecure is a common used dark pattern elsewhere. And that doesn't inspire confidence.

I have never known anyone using E2EE on Telegram. A friend of mine who uses Telegram regulary was quite surprised when I told her that nothing is encrypted if she doesn't use the 'secret chat' option which she didn't really seem to know about.

and it is not available for group chats, and it doesn't sync across devices...

How is Threema better than Matrix?

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