WhatsApp Is Under EU Investigation Again - Here's What to Do
- Michael Routhier
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
If you live in Europe and you use WhatsApp, and if you're reading this, there's a very good chance you use it every single day; I need you to read this post carefully.
Because what is happening with WhatsApp and the European Union right now is not a story about regulators and tech companies arguing in a Brussels conference room somewhere. It is a story about your conversations, your contacts, your daily habits, and who else has access to all of it.
And the answer to that last question is more complicated than Meta would like you to believe.
What Is Actually Happening
Let me give you the facts, because the headlines are moving fast and the details matter.
In December 2025, the European Commission opened a formal antitrust investigation into Meta over its WhatsApp Business Solution Terms, a policy update that effectively blocked competing AI providers from accessing WhatsApp while keeping Meta's own AI system fully embedded in the platform. In plain language; Meta changed the rules so that only their AI could reach you through WhatsApp, while everyone else's AI was locked out.
By February 2026, the Commission had already announced its intention to impose interim measures, emergency regulatory steps, to force Meta to reverse the policy while the investigation continues. The Commission's assessment was direct; Meta's conduct represented a likely violation of EU antitrust law, and the damage to competition was happening in real time.
This is not the first time WhatsApp has been in the EU's crosshairs. In 2021, the Irish Data Protection Commission fined WhatsApp €225 million, the second-largest GDPR fine in history at the time, for failing to be transparent about how it handles user data, including how it shares that data with other Meta companies like Facebook and Instagram. WhatsApp challenged that decision all the way to the Court of Justice of the European Union. In February 2026, the CJEU confirmed the case could proceed, meaning the legal battle over your data is still actively being fought.
And just last month, WhatsApp delayed its planned rollout of in-app advertising to EU users amid ongoing privacy concerns from regulators. They know the scrutiny is real. That delay was not a courtesy. That was a company watching its legal exposure very carefully.
Why This Matters to You Specifically
I want to be direct about something, because I think this is the part of the story that gets lost in the regulatory language.
When the EU fined WhatsApp €225 million, the core finding was this; WhatsApp was not telling you clearly enough what data it was collecting, why it was collecting it, and critically, who else it was sharing it with.
The "who else" is the whole story.
WhatsApp is owned by Meta. Meta also owns Facebook and Instagram. Your WhatsApp activity; your contacts, your message metadata, your location data, the frequency of your communications, who you talk to and when, flows into Meta's broader data infrastructure. It informs the advertising profiles that Meta sells. It contributes to the AI systems Meta is now building directly into the platform.
You did not sign up for a messaging app owned by the world's largest advertising company by accident. But most people don't think about it that way. They think about WhatsApp the way they think about a phone call, private, between the people on the line.
That is not what WhatsApp is.
And the EU, to its enormous credit, has been fighting on your behalf to make that clearer for years, at enormous legal and political cost.
Your Rights Under GDPR, Use Them
The EU just marked ten years since the GDPR came into force. And I want to remind you, because most people still don't use these rights, what you are actually entitled to as a European citizen or resident.
Under the GDPR, you have the right to:
Know what data is collected about you, why it is collected, and who it is shared with
Request a copy of your data, everything WhatsApp holds on you, at any time
Have your data corrected if it is inaccurate
Have your data deleted; the "right to be forgotten"
Withdraw your consent to data processing at any time
Object to your data being used for profiling or advertising purposes
Lodge a complaint with your national data protection authority if you believe your rights have been violated
These are not theoretical rights. They are legally enforceable. And the €225 million fine WhatsApp received proves that regulators will act when companies violate them.
Seven Things to Do Right Now
Here is what I want you to actually do today, after you finish reading this.
1. Review your WhatsApp Privacy Settings immediately. Open WhatsApp → Settings → Privacy. Set Last Seen and Online to "Nobody" or "My Contacts". Set Profile Photo to "My Contacts". Set "About" to "My Contacts". These small steps limit how much strangers and Meta's systems can infer about you from your profile alone.
2. Enable Strict Account Settings. WhatsApp introduced this in January 2026, and most people have no idea it exists. Go to Settings → Privacy → Advanced → Strict Account Settings. This locks your privacy to the most restrictive settings and blocks attachments and media from people not already in your contacts. It is the closest thing to a "lockdown mode" WhatsApp offers.
3. Turn off "Share data with Meta". On iPhone; WhatsApp → Settings → Privacy → Advanced, review the data sharing options with Meta. On Android; the path is similar through Settings → Privacy. Opt out of everything you can.
4. Turn off Read Receipts and Live Location. Read receipts tell the people you message and the system logging those interactions, exactly when you read every message. Live Location is even more sensitive. Go to Settings → Privacy and turn both off.
5. Enable disappearing messages. Go to Settings → Privacy → Default Message Timer and set it to 7 days or 24 hours. This means your messages automatically delete after the set period. It limits the pool of data available if your account is ever compromised, or if Meta ever decides to use that content differently.
6. Request your data from WhatsApp. Go to Settings → Account → Request Account Info. WhatsApp will prepare a report of the data they hold about you within 3 days. Read it. Know what they know.
7. Make a complaint if something doesn't look right. If you review your data and believe WhatsApp is holding or sharing information you didn't consent to, you have the right to file a complaint with your national data protection authority; the ICO in Ireland and the UK, the CNIL in France, the BfDI in Germany, the AEPD in Spain, and so on. The GDPR gives regulators real teeth. Use them.
And If You Want an Alternative
I am not here to tell you to delete WhatsApp tomorrow. I know how embedded it is in daily life across Europe; for families, for community groups, for staying connected with people who matter. I understand the practical reality.
But I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't tell you that alternatives exist, and that they are better for your privacy by design.
Signal is the gold standard. End-to-end encrypted. Open source. Collects almost no metadata. Used by journalists, lawyers, human rights workers, and security professionals around the world. It is free and it works exactly like WhatsApp.
Telegram offers more features but stores more data; it is a step up from WhatsApp in some ways but not a complete privacy solution.
If you are not ready to make a full switch, consider using Signal for your most sensitive conversations; with your doctor, your financial adviser, your family, while keeping WhatsApp for everything else. That is a reasonable, practical middle ground.
The Bigger Picture
The EU is fighting this battle on your behalf. The GDPR fines, the antitrust investigations, the interim measures, these are not bureaucratic formalities. They are the result of European regulators taking seriously the idea that your data belongs to you, not to a corporation in California that makes its money by turning your habits into advertising inventory.
That principle that you have rights over your own information is worth defending. And the way you defend it is by using the tools and rights you already have.
Michael Routhier is the founder of Tech 4 Grown-Ups, a platform dedicated to honest, unfiltered digital literacy for adults 55 and over. Find everything at tech4grownups.com.
European Commission - Antitrust investigation into Meta / WhatsApp Business Solution Terms, December 2025: commission.europa.eu
CNBC - "EU announces it plans to impose measures on Meta to reverse WhatsApp AI policy," February 9, 2026: cnbc.com
Irish Data Protection Commission / European Data Protection Board - WhatsApp GDPR fine €225 million, September 2021: techhq.com
Court of Justice of the European Union - Case C-97/23 P, WhatsApp Ireland v EDPB, February 10, 2026: curia.europa.eu
European Commission - Ten Years of the GDPR: Your Data, Your Rights, May 22, 2026: commission.europa.eu
WhatsApp Official Blog - Strict Account Settings, January 26, 2026: blog.whatsapp.com
LinkedIn/TechFeed - WhatsApp delays EU ad rollout amid privacy concerns, June 2025: linkedin.com
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