Turkey fined WhatsApp messaging service on Friday for breaching the rules on the protection of personal data. That happened the day after the Facebook branch in Ireland had already incurred a multimillion-dollar fine.
The Turkish data protection authority sentenced WhatsApp to a fine of 1.95 million Turkish lire. According to Turkey, the service has “not taken the necessary measures to avoid unlawful processing of personal data”.
WhatsApp came under fire in January after it asked its approximately two billion users to approve new terms of use that would allow it to share more data with Facebook. The Turkish data protection authority accuses WhatsApp, among other things, that the users are obliged to sign the entire contract and do not have a free choice.
The Turkish decision comes a day after the Irish data protection authority – Facebook’s European headquarters is in Ireland – fined WhatsApp €225 million for similar breaches of European privacy law.
Major tech companies such as Facebook and Google are increasingly under fire for privacy scandals. Significant fines have already been imposed in both the United States and the EU. In August, Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter were also fined in Russia for failing to store Russian users’ data in that country.