The Justice and Constitutional Development Department, through its Information Regulator, said it was assessing and reviewing the compliance of the revised WhatsApp Privacy Policy.
This after WhatsApp recently announced a new privacy policy that will see a change in how its parent company, Facebook, collects data from its 2 billion user accounts.
The regulator said it has made contact with Facebook SA, which has provided it with the WhatsApp privacy policy, which was revised on 4 January.
“The engagements with Facebook SA are ongoing. However, in terms of the revised policy, it appears that there are different terms of service and privacy policies for users in the European countries and in non-European countries.
“The regulator will be analysing whether the terms of service and the privacy policies indeed differ and whether the privacy policy applicable to users outside Europe, which include the South African users, are in compliance with the Protection of Personal Information Act.”
WhatsApp said there was “a lot of misinformation” about the update to terms of service regarding an option to use WhatsApp to message businesses.
The update regards how merchants using WhatsApp to chat with customers can share data with Facebook, which could use the information for targeting ads, according to the social network.
“We can’t see your private messages or hear your calls, and neither can Facebook,” WhatsApp said in a blog post.
“We don’t keep logs of who everyone is messaging or calling.”