Facebook's regional vice president is arrested by Brazilian police for not providing information requested by a criminal investigatioan.
In the most recent clash between the Brazilian law enforcers and Facebook in Sao Paulo, police have detained the company’s regional vice president in Sao Paulo for failure to provide details that a criminal investigation had requested it to provide.
On March 1, 2016, the officials took Diego Dzodan into custody at Garulhos airport. Diego is currently being questioned regarding the accused non-compliance by the subsidiary of Facebook, WhatsApp, with an order given by the court.
The court claims that it has ordered WhatsApp for over 30 days to disclose messages related to an alleged drug-trafficking racket. After the company rejected three requests made by the federal police, it faced a daily fine of $12,574.49 (50,000 reais), followed by charging a penalty on a daily basis of $251,489.7(1 million reais). Ultimately, the court ordered to arrest the official.
The social network company called the action taken by the police as “extreme and disproportionate”. It states in 2014 the social network purchased WhatsApp, which has no employees based in Brazil. The service independently operates so Diego must not be held responsible. Moreover, it has noted that content which end users encrypt is not stored by the WhatsApp messaging facility.
It states that court is asking for details which the company does not have. This differs from the details found on the social network of Facebook, which are archived and can be shared if the law enforcement agencies of Brazil request it to do so and its lawyers approve their action.
This is not the one and only controversy for WhatsApp, which is Brazil’s most popular downloaded application in the past two years and is used by around 100 million people. In another case in December, court issues an injunction to shut down WhatsApp for 2 days for failing twice to act according to its orders. An outcry by users and interference by CEO Mark Zuckerberg who called the shutdown “a sad day for Brazil” overturned the injunction.
A lawyer, Adriano Mendes, who is digital law specialist but isn’t directly participating in the present case, said differences in knowledge and data security rules caused wars like one being fought between Facebook and the Brazilian government.
He expected that a higher court would shortly overturn the case as was done with a case in December 2015. WhatsApp’s spokesman said the company collaborated with investigators “to the full extent of our ability”.
The arrest was decried by Facebook’s spokesman, stating the company had always presented itself to answer the questions raised by the authorities of Brazil.
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