Facebook notified Instagram and Facebook Messenger users in Europe that some features of the app will be temporarily unavailable. A small prompt has appeared in both the Instagram apps and Facebook Messenger apps for European users earlier this week.
Instagram and Messenger features disabled
The message that the users received noted that some features of the said apps are not available to comply with the new rules for messaging services in Europe.
Facebook does not outline what specific features will be temporarily disabled, but the company does reveal on its support pages that the polls option on both Instagram and Messenger will be unavailable in Europe, as well as the stickers in Instagram and personalized replies on Messenger.
The other missing features may include limiting the files that can be sent on Messenger, changing nicknames, and the ability to share AR effects in direct messages on Instagram.
Facebook's decision to disable features
Facebook has temporarily disabled some of the said features in order to follow the new rules on data usage in EU countries. It is a part of the national implementations that are currently taking place of the 2002 Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive or ePrivacy Directive.
This directive imposes stricter rules on data use across apps and communication services that operate in countries that are part of the European Union, according to TechCrunch.
Back in November, European Union lawmakers have laid out a proposal to encourage the reuse of industrial data by creating a standardized framework of tools and techniques to make sure that sharing data is secure and is under privacy-compliant conditions.
Enabling a network of trusted and neutral data intermediaries, and an oversight regime that is comprised of national monitoring authorities and a pan-EU coordinating body are all of the core components of the plan.
The move follows the data strategy announcement of the European Commission last month, when it stated that it wanted to boost data reuse to support a new generation of data-driven services that are powered by data-hungry artificial intelligence.
The commission also wanted to encourage the notion of using technology for good by enabling more data and good quality data to fuel innovation with a common public good and improve public services.
Although personal data is already regulated, commercial considerations can limit how industrial data is shared. The EU executive believes that harmonized requirements that set technical and legal conditions for data reuse are needed for certainty and trust. It is delivered through a framework that promises to maintain rights and protections and it gets more data usefully flowing.
The EU Commission also sees massive business benefits flowing from the data governance regime. According to a press release published on EC Europa, both small and large businesses will benefit from new business opportunities as well as from a reduction in costs for acquiring, integrating and processing data.
After this announcement by Facebook was made, it is still not clear when Facebook will lift the restrictions of the features for European users, but a spokesperson of Facebook told The Verge that it will be soon.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Sieeka Khan
