Continental first to ban WhatsApp and SnapChat on company devices
Berlin — Facebook and Snap have a new common foe: automotive parts maker Continental. The German company said in a statement on Tuesday that it’s forbidding its 240,000 employees from using Facebook’s WhatsApp, or Snap’s social media service Snapchat, on any of its company-issued mobile devices, citing privacy concerns. "We think it is unacceptable to transfer to users the responsibility of complying with data protection laws," CEO Elmar Degenhart said. "This is why we are turning to secure alternatives." About 36,000 such devices would be affected by the ban, a Continental spokesperson told Bloomberg. Privacy has moved from a niche topic to one of the biggest headaches for top bosses. Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into force last month, forcing everyone from neighbourhood restaurants and hotels, to Amazon and Google, to comply — or face penalties as high as nearly $25b or 4% of global annual revenue. In its statement, Continental said the move is meant to ...
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