Ireland’s privacy watchdog fines WhatsApp €5.5 million

Ireland's data protection authority has fined WhatsApp Ireland €5.5 million for breaches of the GDPR relating to its service and told it comply with data processing laws within six months. Why Ireland? The Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) is the head regulator for several of the US tech giants, and this is because they …

[DevOpsTimothyC]

Teeth

How about making the fine €55 million and then €5.5 million per day if this isn't resolved in 6 weeks

[I could be a dog really]

6 months to get into compliance does seem rather generous given that the requirements aren't new and the company has known for some time that it was going to have to do it. I predict WA will make some changes* and then claim compliance - starting the clock all over again and they can carry on breaking the law for a few more years while the authorities investigate again.

Somehow I doubt if I'd get anywhere if I asked a copper (UK slang for a policeman or woman for our foreign friends) for 6 months to replace a bald tyre on the car !

* A whole new privacy statement, re-written so you can't simply look to see what's changed, and equally skewed in favour of WA.

[damo2929]

Bin whatsapp

Why are people still using WhatsApp do people not care about data privacy anymore.

[Ken G]

Re: Bin whatsapp

Most people don't. Or at least value usability over potential harvesting of their metadata for marketing.

I deleted WhatsApp some time ago, using Telegram for my regular contacts and Signal for my cautious ones but that leaves many others who stuck with WhatsApp.

[Winkypop]

WhatsApp

Isn’t its whole business model just to act as a data harvester?

The messaging part is just the shiny things to attract the users.