WhatsApp Given A Privacy Hosedown By Canadian And Dutch Regulators

The messaging app transmits all contact numbers from a smartphone to its servers without deleting non-users. A joint investigation by Dutch and Canadian privacy regulators has found that WhatsApp, the photo-sharing, messaging, and all things social app has been storing non-users' contact data on its servers. Although there is no law preventing the harvesting of data belonging to people who do not use the service, the Silicon Valley-based firm did not delete phone numbers after checking. Investigators for the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the Dutch Data Protection Authority discovered that the contacts were then stored in short-form code. Although the firm has not yet commented on the report, it has made other changes requested by the two privacy agencies, such as encrypting messages to prevent eavesdropping, and more security measures to prevent accounts being hacked by scamme...