An anonymous reader shares a Bloomberg report: Facebook, already under scrutiny in the U.S. and the European Union for revisions to privacy policies for its WhatsApp messaging service, was ordered by Hamburg’s privacy watchdog to stop processing data of German users of the chat service. In a renewed clash with the social-network operator, Johannes Caspar, one of Germany’s most outspoken data protection commissioners, ordered Facebook to delete any data it already has. The news comes as EU privacy regulators, who previously expressed concerns about the policy shift, meet in Brussels to discuss their position. There’s no legal basis for Facebook to use information of WhatsApp customers, Caspar said Tuesday. “This order protects the data of about 35 million WhatsApp users in Germany,” Caspar said. “It has to be their decision as to whether they want to connect their account with Facebook. Therefore, Facebook has to ask for their permission in advance. This has not happened.”

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Source: Slashdot – Facebook Told To Stop Taking Data From German WhatsApp Users