Heena Sharma Blog

  EU privacy watchdog EDPB on Wednesday gave the Irish data protection agency a month to issue a long-delayed decision on compliance by Facebook's WhatsApp after its peers objected to its draft finding. The agency, which leads oversight of Facebook because the company's European headquarters are based in Ireland, has been investigating WhatsApp to see if it complies with transparency obligations specified by EU privacy rules known as GDPR. It sought feedback from its peers in December but was unable to find a consensus regarding its draft decision. The other national watchdogs objected to the type of infringements identified by the Irish, whether the specific data in question was personal data and the appropriateness of the proposed sanctions. The Irish agency said it would not follow the objections and referred them to the EDPB, which on Wednesday adopted a decision addressing the merits of the disagreements but did not provide details. Read More

  The Centre on Monday told the Delhi High Court that WhatsApp was treating Indian users differently from its European ones with regard to opting out of its new privacy policy, and this was a matter of concern for the government which is looking into it. The central government told the high court that it was also a matter of concern that Indian users were being "unilaterally" subjected to the change in privacy policy by social networking platform WhatsApp. The submissions were made before Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva by Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma during hearing of a petition by a lawyer against the new privacypolicy of the social networking platform owned by Facebook. Duringthe hearing, Sharma told the court that by not giving Indian users the optionto opt out of sharing their data with other companies of Facebook, WhatsApp prima facie appears to be treating users with an "all or nothing approach". Read More

WhatsApp on Tuesday said its latest policy update does not affect the privacy of messages as the Facebook-owned company sought to address concerns around security of user data on the platform. In a blogpost, WhatsApp emphasised that it does not share users' contact lists or data of groups with Facebook for ads purposes, and that neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can read messages or hear calls between users on WhatsApp. Last week, WhatsApp had informed users of an update in its Terms of Service and privacy policy regarding how it processes user data and partners with Facebook to offer integrations across the social media giant's products. It also stated that users will have to agree to the new terms and policy by February 8, 2021, in order to continue using WhatsApp's service. This kickstarted a spate of conversations and memes on the internet over WhatsApp's alleged sharing of user information with Facebook, and many users have started shifting to rival platforms like Te...

  Concerned at private group chat links being available on Google Search, WhatsApp on Monday said that they have asked Google not to index such chats and advised users not to share group chat links on publicly accessible websites. Google had indexed invite links to private WhatsApp group chats, meaning anyone can join various private chat groups with a simple search. The indexed WhatsApp group chat links have now been removed from Google. Independent cybersecurity researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia on Sunday shared screenshots with IANS showing indexing of WhatsApp group chat invites on Google. "Since March 2020, WhatsApp has included the "noindex" tag on all deep link pages which, according to Google, will exclude them from indexing. We have given our feedback to Google to not index these chats," a WhatsApp spokesperson told IANS. Read More

The latest security incident around WhatsApp could have a bearing on the launch of its digital payment services in India as these systems need to be "fool-proof", a senior government official said. Asked if the Pegasus snooping row could impact WhatsApp's digital payment plans that are still awaiting regulator approvals, the official said the incident will certainly raise question on seriousness of the plans and security aspects, particularly since digital payment is all about fool-proof systems. An e-mail sent to WhatApp on the issue remained unanswered. The messaging app, which has about 400 million users in India, has been testing its payments service in the country since last year with about a million users. WhatsApp's service will compete against the likes of Paytm, PhonePe and Google Pay as and when it is rolled out nationally in India. Official sources said the government is "disturbed" about WhatsApp's lack of disclosures on the hac...

WhatsApp on Thursday introduced fingerprint lock on supported Android phones to help users protect their chats from being seen by hackers, family members or jilted lovers. Users who install the new version of WhatsApp will have to scan a fingerprint to open up the Facebook-owned platform. "Earlier this year, we rolled out Touch ID and Face ID for iPhone to provide an extra layer of security for WhatsApp users," the micro-blogging platform said in a statement. "Today we're introducing similar authentication, allowing you to unlock the app with your fingerprint, on supported Android phones," it added. To enable it, tap Settings, go to Account, then Privacy and Fingerprint Lock. Turn on Unlock with fingerprint, and confirm your fingerprint. Read More Article Source -> Business Standard

Senior government officials in multiple US-allied countries were targeted earlier this year with hacking software that used Facebook-owned instant messaging app WhatsApp to take over users' phones, according to people familiar with the messaging company's investigation. Sources familiar with WhatsApp’s internal investigation into the breach said a “significant” portion of the known victims were high-profile government and military officials spread across at least 20 countries in five continents. The hacking of a wider group of top government officials' smartphones than previously reported suggests the WhatsApp cyber intrusion could have broad political and diplomatic consequences. WhatsApp filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Israeli hacking tool developer NSO Group. The Facebook-owned software giant alleges that NSO Group built and sold a hacking platform that exploited a flaw in WhatsApp-owned servers to help clients hack into the cellphones of at least 1,400 us...

WhatsApp on Friday said child pornography has absolutely no place on the messaging platform and that it takes action against the dissemination of such content, including banning of accounts, based on user reports. Terming child pornography as " vile ", WhatsApp said it also responds to valid legal requests from law enforcement to investigate these types of crimes. "While we cannot see the messages that people share with one another, we can and do take action based on user reports including banning accounts," WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement adding that child pornography has no place on the messaging platform. The comments came as the Supreme Court Thursday said the Centre and internet giants, including Google, Microsoft and Facebook, were in agreement that videos of rape, child pornography and objectionable material needed to be "stamped out". A Bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and U U Lalit noted that intermediaries have "diffe...