WhatsApp, one of the new entrants in India’s payments market, has said it may share customers’ payments data with its parent Facebook, at a time when the latter, is dealing with questions about how it uses customer data. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify before the US Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday about allegations that London-based data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica inappropriately accessed data on Facebook users in the run-up to the US elections.  On Monday, Zuckerberg admitted he was too idealistic and failed to grasp how the platform - used by two billion people - could be abused and manipulated.

According to an article on Mint, a clause in the WhatsApp Policy  is as follows, “We share information with third-party providers and services to help us operate and improve Payments... To send payment instructions to PSPs (payment service providers), maintain your transaction history, provide customer support, and keep our Services safe and secure, including to detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, safety, security, abuse, or other misconduct, we share information we collect under this Payments Privacy Policy with third-party service providers including Facebook,”

The clause further added, “To provide Payments to you, we share information with third-party services including PSPs, such as your mobile phone number, registration information, device identifiers, VPAs (virtual payments addresses), the sender’s UPI PIN, and payment amount."

According to a circular by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the banks associated with third-party payment apps like WhatsApp and PhonePe need to get exclusive permission from NPCI before they share customer data.

Recently, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has sent a data circular, asking the payment companies operating in India to locate their servers within the country. It mandated sticking to the guidelines within a period of six months.

 

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 10, 2018 01:54 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).