Nigeria’s ICT ministry has raised eyebrows over WhatsApp’s recently updated (May 2021) privacy policy which mandates sharing users’ information with its parent company Facebook and its other arms.
In a press release issued by Dr. Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy and signed by Dr Femi Adeluyi, the minister ordered the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), to “engage vigorously” with Facebook to understand the processes, level of security, etc of the data of Nigerian WhatsApp and Facebook users in order to ensure that the apps’ policies are in line with the Nigeria Data Protection Regulations (NDPR) provisions. The NDPR was released in 2019 to ensure no breach in the data privacy of Nigerians.
The new WhatsApp Policy proposes to share user phone numbers, transaction data, service-related information, information on how users interact with others (including businesses), mobile device information, and IP address of users.
According to the WhatsApp FAQ page, the new policy does not apply to European countries in its entirety. WhatsApp also said it will not deactivate WhatsApp profiles of users who did not accept the update immediately it was rolled out in May but that it’d keep reminding users about it and should they want to use other features in the update version of the app, they would have to accept the privacy policy.