Security News > 2021 > May > German watchdog bans Facebook from using WhatsApp users' data
The order issued today by the HmbBfDI, one of Germany's data protection commissioners, comes after WhatsApp said that it will slowly restrict account features for users who refuse to give up control of their data and have it shared with Facebook companies starting May 15th, 2021.
The announcement comes after the data watchdog started urgent proceedings last month with the goal of issuing an order under GDPR guidance to stop Facebook from collecting and processing any data from WhatsApp users for their own purposes.
Hamburg's data regulator head also wants to extend the emergency ban imposed on Facebook's WhatsApp data processing capabilities by asking the European Data Protection Board to make it a binding order at the European level.
As the German data watchdog said, its request to Ireland's Data Protection Commission "For an investigation into the actual practice of data sharing was not honoured so far."
Despite Facebook's three-month data processing freeze order, WhatsApp will continue pushing its new privacy changes asking users to choose between limited account functionality and accepting to share their data with Facebook.
As the HmbBfDI data watchdog also discovered, some WhatsApp users' data, including phone numbers and device identifiers, are already being shared with Facebook for "Network security and to prevent spam from being sent."