ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Hussain Chaudhry told Arab News on Saturday that WhatsApp’s new policy would hurt user privacy, adding that the government should create its own messaging service for people instead of relying on global applications.
WhatsApp issued pop-up notices to users this week, asking them to accept its new privacy policy by February 8 after which their data would be shared with Facebook.
In an FAQ post, WhatsApp said it shared a wide range of user information with other Facebook companies, including phone numbers, display names, make and model of handsets, IP addresses used to identify the location of internet connections, and any payments or financial transactions made over the messaging service.
“This will badly hurt user privacy and impact the business of the global messaging platform in many countries. This move by WhatsApp will also benefit other messaging apps like Signal and Telegram,” Chaudhry told Arab News, adding that the development could also encourage different countries and regions to create their own applications which abide by local laws and privacy policies.
“The Pakistani government should create such a platform of its own like China and the United Arab Emirates. China has its own application WeChat and many Gulf countries have also developed their own messaging platforms,” he continued.
Chaudhry pointed out that Pakistan already had local messaging services, such as TelloTalk, which were not very popular but could now expand their user base in the country.
“This decision seems to be driven by the antitrust litigation against Facebook in the United States,” he added. “Facebook may be trying to get the WhatsApp data before relinquishing its ownership of that company.”
A Pakistani lawyer and activist, Nighat Dad, who runs a not-for-profit organization, Digital Rights Foundation, termed the new policy “unfair,” adding that users in developing countries already lacked strong data privacy regulations.
“WhatsApp has exempted the European Union, United Kingdom and United States due to their strong privacy regulations,” she noted. “Developing countries are still trying to catch when it comes to such policies.”
Dad added that Pakistanis should start using open-source applications that are not controlled by any corporation.
“In the last few weeks, Signal has been massively downloaded in many countries including Pakistan,” she added. “Signal, Telegram and Wire are more privacy friendly.”
Messaging application Signal said in a twitter post this week that its verification codes were getting delayed because of the number of new users trying to join the network.
“This is blackmailing from a big company like Facebook that is asking users to surrender their data or stop using WhatsApp,” another internet activist Asad Baig told Arab News.
He said the new WhatsApp policy was alarming since there was hardly any transparency about how the data was going to be used.
“This is the reason we should have legislations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union (EU). The GDPR limits international companies from collecting a lot of data of EU citizens,” he added.
Adnan Lotia, Chief Operating Officer of the Pakistani messaging platform TelloTalk, said it was a great opportunity for local platforms that should market themselves more aggressively to fill the void.
“TelloTalk subscriptions have seen 70 percent growth in the last few months. The government should also support local platforms that follows local regulations,” he told Arab News.
Syed Azfar Hussain, program manager of the National Incubation Center Karachi, said the new WhatsApp policy would not have a major impact on Pakistani users.
“In Pakistan, Facebook financial transactions were not happening in large volumes due to the absence of PayPal and other such platforms. So, this will not have a great impact on Pakistani users. Local platforms still need a lot of funding and government support,” he said.
