WhatsApp Breaches Canadian Privacy Laws
WhatsApp breaches privacy laws - Technology & Science - CBC News
The popular mobile messaging app WhatsApp breaches Canadian and Dutch privacy laws by forcing many of its users to grant access to their entire address book in order to use it, Canada's privacy watchdog has found in a joint investigation with Dutch authorities.
"The address book contains phone numbers of both users and non-users," noted Jacob Kohnstamm, chairman of the Dutch Data Protection Authority, in a statement released Monday with a report on the investigation.
"This lack of choice contravenes (Dutch and Canadian) privacy law."
While the app, made by California-based developer WhatsApp Inc., now allows Apple iPhone users running iOS 6 to add contacts manually instead of uploading their address book, BlackBerry, Android, Windows and Nokia users still don't have that option.
That means the problem remains largely unresolved following the investigation and the release of the report.
The report says WhatsApp has committed to fixing the problem on other platforms, but would not say when.
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