Use WhatsApp on your company cell phone: You need to know that

The GDPR is on everyone's lips and also very relevant in the context of WhatsApp. The company mobile phone is also affected - especially if you use WhatsApp on it. In this article we show which special features you should consider.

The pitfalls of WhatsApp on the company cell phone

It was clear for a long time that she was coming, but since May 25, 2018, the GDPR has been in force and caused a lot of excitement. The data protection law affects numerous areas of life, including the use of WhatsApp on the company cell phone.

• Basically, you explicitly need the consent of corporate customers if you save, use or pass them on.
• If you pass on customer data without the consent of the respective customer, this can be very expensive for you. This has been especially true since the GDPR came into force.
• In the case of WhatsApp, this is particularly tricky because all communication data is read out automatically. And not only that: WhatsApp can also call up the saved data, such as telephone number, address, pictures or notes.
• In this case, this means that even if you do not use corporate customer data for Messenger, WhatsApp will still access the data.
• Incidentally, storing and sending pictures using WhatsApp is tricky, as the customer may have rights to the picture. For example, if you take a picture of a building with your smartphone, you may already have problems without the permission of the property owner.
• The simple solution is: do without WhatsApp on the company cell phone. If necessary, use WhatsApp on a separate smartphone. However, this is only useful if you do not save customer data on this smartphone.

According to the GDPR, most companies are now obliged to keep a processing directory. If you haven't created one yet, you shouldn't miss the next article.