WhatsApp has changed its legal basis for processing personal data in Europe to legitimate interest from performing a contract. The change comes after the Irish Data Protection Commissioner issued a €5.5 million fine in January in the conclusion of its long-running forced-consent data processing investigation. WhatsApp updated its privacy policy on Monday to reflect the change.
The switch to legitimate interest could yet still be contested after the recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which clarified, "personalised advertising by which the online social network Facebook finances its activity, cannot justify, as a legitimate interest pursued by Meta Platforms Ireland, the processing of the data at issue, in the absence of the data subject’s consent."
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