German watchdog bans Facebook from processing WhatsApp data

Caspar warned that with 60 million users in Germany, there’s a danger WhatsApp could be used to influence voters in September federal elections through Facebook ads. — AP

LONDON: A German privacy watchdog banned Facebook on May 11 from gathering data on users of its WhatsApp chat app, citing an update to its privacy policy that it said breaches stringent European data protection rules.

Hamburg’s data protection commissioner, Johannes Caspar, said he issued an emergency three-month order prohibiting the social network from processing WhatsApp personal data for its own purposes.