[HN Gopher] WhatsApp fined 5.5M euro by lead EU privacy regulator
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WhatsApp fined 5.5M euro by lead EU privacy regulator
Author : LinuxBender
Score : 81 points
Date : 2023-01-19 16:37 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| denton-scratch wrote:
| "Did Not Connect: Potential Security Issue"
|
| Apparently Reuters is using a certificate issued by Comodo
| (COMODO RSA Organization Validation Secure Server CA). Firefox
| refuses to play.
|
| I'm pretty sure Reuters was working earlier this week. Has
| Firefox updated its root list?
| closewith wrote:
| Works for me on Firefox.
| danuker wrote:
| Also works for me on v106.0.3 on Arch Linux.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| They might be serving a bad chain of intermediate certificates.
| That results in confusing errors: If your browser knows the
| intermediate certificate (because it has seen it on another
| website), it will work, but if it hasn't seen it yet, you get
| an error.
| syrrim wrote:
| New fingerprinting method just dropped?
| bthater wrote:
| Is there any information as to what they violated that is
| resulting in the fine? This article is particularly sparse on
| details.
| lmkg wrote:
| Here's the press release put out by the regulator that issued
| the fine,
|
| Press release: https://www.dataprotection.ie/en/news-
| media/data-protection-...
|
| The main thing is that WhatsApp _changed_ some processing from
| relying on Consent to relying on "Contractual Agreement"
| (contrary to popular opinion, GDPR does not always require
| consent). The fine is based on two things: 1) this change and
| its ramifications were not communicated to users 2) you can't
| actually use "Contractual Agreement" for some of that
| processing.
|
| 1) is important because consent can be withdrawn. If users
| still believe that processing is based on their consent, they
| believe they have the ability to withdraw consent and
| processing must stop, but that doesn't apply to Contractual
| Agreement. In other words, this lack-of-clarity means users
| _believed_ they had more control over they data, but they didn
| 't.
|
| 2) requires reading deeper into the decision to see what
| matters. From background, Facebook has argued in the past that
| personalized advertising is a contractually-provided service,
| and that's probably what got rejected.
| jacquesm wrote:
| This is a recurring theme by now: American company decides to
| look at the law in the narrowest way possible and to try to
| find a loophole to keep doing what they were doing, European
| legislators insist that you take the intent to heart and try
| to do your best to comply with that. This will probably
| happen many more times before the coin will finally drop.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| Assuming the fines are high enough to motivate change.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The GDPR absolutely has the capability to provide that
| motivation. Especially when you get hit several times for
| different instances of the same infraction it can really
| add up, potentially even a large player _could_ be put
| out of business. I think that at some point in time one
| of these regulators is going to get angry enough that
| they may want to set an example.
| hugoroy wrote:
| There are no personalised ads or no ads at all in WhatsApp,
| are there?
|
| What got rejected is using the data for "service improvement"
| and "security" - in particular how WhatsApp used personal
| data for these purposes, and how in the opinion of Europea
| data protection authorities this was not necessary for Meta
| to perform the contract.
| costco wrote:
| Why is legal reporting in Europe so ambiguous? There are
| always articles with a summary but it seems like you can
| never read any deeper unless it reaches the ECJ or ECHR. In
| America we have PACER and anyone with a few dollars can read
| everything besides sealed documents,
| lmkg wrote:
| Well, coupla things wrong with this article/headline.
|
| This decision is from the Irish data privacy regulator, DPC. They
| are "in charge" of this investigation because Facebook's EU
| subsidiary is in Ireland. They are not a "lead" regulator in any
| sense of the word.
|
| In fact, this decision does _not_ come from the DPC. The DPC 's
| decision was to pussy out and issue a smaller fine, and rubber-
| stamp several of Facebook's arguments. Their authority to do so
| was overturned by the regulators for other countries, and by the
| EDPB (EU-level agency). The EDPB is also requiring the DPC to do
| _more_ investigations which will probably eventually result in
| even more fines.
|
| I have a comment downthread about the "meat" of this decision.
| Before GDPR went into effect, WhatsApp updated their terms of
| service so that some processing used Contract instead of Consent
| as a legal basis, which changes what rights users have with
| respect to that data processing. They go fined because this
| change was not well-communicated, and because other regulators
| (not the DPC) say that the processing is not actually part of the
| contract users have with Whatsapp.
|
| GDPR fines tend to be about _specific_ issues related to
| _specific_ complaints. Whatsapp was fined previously 250 million
| Euro for having terribly confusing privacy policy; this fine is
| related to two rather specific parts of their data processing.
| There has _NOT_ been a general "is Whatsapp in its entirety
| compliant with GDPPR" investigation yet. The EDPB-mandated
| investigation is creeping closer to that.
| hugoroy wrote:
| So many wrong things in this comment, which is generally
| uncalled for given the article is quite good (which cannot be
| said of all GDPR related coverage).
|
| So, duty calls[1]:
|
| > This decision is from the Irish data privacy regulator, DPC.
| They are "in charge" of this investigation because Facebook's
| EU subsidiary is in Ireland. They are not a "lead" regulator in
| any sense of the word.
|
| The DPC are officially acting on this case as the "lead
| supervisory authority" as defined in the GDPR ("Article 56 -
| Competence of the lead supervisory authority").
|
| > In fact, this decision does not come from the DPC.
|
| In fact it actually does come from the DPC. The process is:
|
| - DPC issues draft decision, after conducting an investigation,
| etc.
|
| - Other authorities in impacted countries ("concerned
| supervisory authorities" in the official terms of the GDPR)
| chime in, provide comments, and possibly disagree with the
| draft decision (they raise "objections")
|
| - The authorities try to aree, and if they don't, they have a
| dispute that gets resolved at the European Data Protection
| Board
|
| - The EDPB takes a binding decision, which is imposed on the
| DPC (and the other concerned authorities)
|
| - The DPC takes notes of the decision, and issue their sanction
| accordingly.
|
| In the end, it is indeed a decision formally issued by the DPC
| against WhatsApp. That's why Meta need to appeal against the
| DPC in Irish Courts - and why Meta cannot appeal direclty in
| the European General Court against the EDPB.
|
| > The DPC's decision was to pussy out and issue a smaller fine,
| and rubber-stamp several of Facebook's arguments. Their
| authority to do so was overturned by the regulators for other
| countries, and by the EDPB (EU-level agency). The EDPB is also
| requiring the DPC to do more investigations which will probably
| eventually result in even more fines.
|
| > GDPR fines tend to be about specific issues related to
| specific complaints. [...] There has NOT been a general "is
| Whatsapp in its entirety compliant with GDPPR" investigation
| yet. > The EDPB-mandated investigation is creeping closer to
| that.
|
| Actually, the EDPB's request is also specific: it is asking the
| DPC to look precisely about the part of the complaint on
| WhatsApp's use of sensitive data ("special categories" under
| GDPR Article 9).
|
| PS: IAAL
|
| [1] Know your classics: https://xkcd.com/386/
| college_physics wrote:
| it may sound like peanuts but given how complacent people and how
| much they assume "if it is allowed" it means it is kosher (and
| please don't make me download another app) such fines provide
| vital arguments
| rdxm wrote:
| [dead]
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