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Democratic Representatives Ask Facebook To Defer Upcoming Update on WhatsApp’s Privacy Policy

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Democratic Representatives Ask Facebook To Defer Upcoming Update on WhatsApp’s Privacy Policy – How Are Latinos Affected?

Lawmakers in the United States House of Representatives have asked social media giant Facebook to defer the upcoming enforcement of their updated privacy policy covering WhatsApp in a move to protect the best interests of the country’s Latino community. 

Unified Call

A total of nine Democratic representatives hailing from different parts of the country has voiced out their concerns about Facebook’s impending move to monopolize the user data being collected under WhatsApp. 

They, along with other groups, believe that the upcoming move by Facebook would give them the ability to access and eventually use WhatApp’s users’ data for the social media company’s different marketing campaigns and strategies – all without asking for the prior permission of the mobile messaging app’s millions of users. 

House Democrats Raul Grijalva (AZ), Tony Cardenas (CA), Linda T. Sanchez (CA), Darren Soto (FL), Michael San Nicolas (GU), Jesus G. Chuy (IL), Lori Trahan (MA), Nydia M. Velasquez (NY) and Veronia Escobar (TX) joined forces and collectively signed a letter addressed to Facebook’s top executive Mark Zuckerberg. In it, they urged the company CEO to keep their end of the bargain to ensure WhatsApp’s users’ data is safe and secure. 

It is worth noting that when Facebook bought the messaging platform back in 2014, they promised that no user data they would acquire via WhatsApp would be used for advertising purposes without the owner’s prior consent. 

Hispanics Will Be Gravely Affected 

The letter also contended that the upcoming privacy policy update would affect disproportionately impact the country’s Hispanic community. They argued that Latin users consist the majority of WhatsApp users in the United States – accounting for around 32 million users compared to a much smaller percentage of caucasian users. 

The future update would force these immigrant communities to either accept the terms or be forced to use other messaging platforms. This is a huge bane for many of them use WhatsApp to connect with their families back home in South America, where the mobile app is widely used among residents who have relatives in the United States. 

Meanwhile, German regulators have released a three-month-long order to stop Facebook from handling and using WhatsApp user data for their own marketing purposes. As of writing, they are raising the concern to a continent-wide level to obtain a ruling that would bind other European countries. 

On its part, Facebook has defended the move by saying that the policy update is meant to give businesses a chance to communicate with their customers. Additionally, they are contending that they intend to open up more to the public on how they collect user data via WhatsApp. 

Editor’s Note on Democratic Representatives Ask Facebook To Defer Upcoming Update on WhatsApp’s Privacy Policy: 

This news report features a recent collective action by US representatives in a bid to halt the upcoming WhatsApp privacy policy update that would allegedly break Facebook’s original promise to remain hands-off on the messaging platform’s collected user data. 

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