WhatsApp May Exit Nigeria Over $220m Fine
WhatsApp may halt its services in Nigeria due to regulatory demands.
A week ago, Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) fined WhatsApp $220 million for a data privacy violation.
Sources reveal that Meta, WhatsApp’s parent company, is now considering withdrawing certain services from Nigeria.
Alongside the hefty fine, the FCCPC ordered WhatsApp to stop sharing user data with other Facebook companies and third parties without explicit consent. The commission also demanded that WhatsApp disclose its data collection practices and enhance user control over data usage.
A WhatsApp spokesperson told TechCabal, “We want to be clear that, technically, based on the order, it would be impossible to provide WhatsApp in Nigeria or globally.” The spokesperson criticized the FCCPC’s order as flawed and said it misrepresents WhatsApp’s data handling, requiring significant changes to the platform’s infrastructure.
Meta has not responded to the FCCPC’s allegations about user opt-out options from the 2021 privacy policy but insists that the update does not involve sharing user data.
The company’s privacy policy states, “While traditionally mobile carriers and operators store this information, we believe that keeping these records for two billion users would be both a privacy and security risk and we don’t do it.”
A potential suspension of WhatsApp could have significant repercussions for individuals and small businesses in Nigeria, many of whom rely on WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook for customer engagement.
