South African lawmakers to take on Facebook over WhatsApp privacy

Facebook South Africa has been asked to answer for its plans to share users’ personal information with third parties via its subsidiary, WhatsApp.

While the Information Regulator (IR) has written to Facebook South Africa to point out that the company’s new terms of use would violate the Protection of Personal Information Act(POPIA), members of parliament are expected to raise the issue in the National Assembly.

Users globally have just a few weeks left to decide if they accept the new terms of service and perhaps to properly consider its implications. These include that Facebook will be able to share not just your contact information but that of whomever you communicate with on WhatsApp to the tech giant’s data customers.

Democratic Alliance (DA) shadow communications minister Pumzile van Damme said the company needed to answer to some of the IR’s concerns in parliament.

“I look forward to asking Facebook this and other questions when it appears before the Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies. We are currently awaiting feedback from the Chairperson of the committee regarding his discussions with the company and when it will come to Parliament,” she said.

Facebook has faced an onslaught of regulation tightening from governments around the world, including in the European Union, where several investigations into the operations of Facebook Inc and Google Inc were before the Ireland Data Commission.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which applies in the EU and other regulations in countries such as the UK have largely protected European users from the impositions posed by the new WhatsApp terms.

Also Read: Information Regulator engaging with Facebook SA over WhatsApp update

Digital tech expert and editor of Stuff Magazine Toby Shapshak said it was encouraging to see the IR finally show some teeth. “What Tlakula sets out there is a case to be made that you can’t simply change the way you use that data,” he explained.

“Basically the regulator is telling Facebook that the original intention you laid out for asking for people’s phone numbers was so they can use WhatsApp, which is part of the Facebook organisation, and it has to ask the information regulator for approval if it wants to do something other than what it was originally approved for. I would say that is a good thing.”

According to IR chair Adv Pansy Tlakula,  WhatsApp cannot process any of its users’ contact information
for a purpose other than the one for which the number was specifically intended at collection, with
the aim of linking that information jointly with information processed by other Facebook companies without the body’s permission. Facebook would have to obtain prior authorisation from the IR in terms of section
57 of POPIA.

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“Some people are starting to say that the horse has already bolted, but it doesn’t matter. That is not a legitimate reason for them to share our personal information with their real customers who are the companies that advertise with Facebook,” concluded Shapshak.

The IR said it told Facebook SA it was ‘willing and committed to have a round-table discussion’ on the issues it raised to ensure that there is full compliance with the provisions of POPIA and other pertinent international legal instruments.

Simnikiweh@citizen.co.za

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