E-Business
Users Switch to Other Apps as WhatsApp’s Update Sparks Criticisms

WhatsApp, popular messaging app, had last week asked its users to accept new terms that will allow it to share more information with its parent company Facebook and roll out advertising and e-commerce.
This development did not go down with most users, resulting in criticism and switching to other apps like Signal and Telegram, as they must accept the changes or see their access to the service, which also allows encrypted voice and video calls cut off from February 8, 2021.
Facebook aims to monetise WhatsApp by allowing businesses to contact their clients via the platform and even sell them products directly using the service as they already do in India.
In the EU and Britain, the new terms only allow for the development of functionalities for professional users of WhatsApp Business, a company spokesman told AFP.
User advocates warned the update was not legal.
“If the only way to refuse (the modification) is to stop using WhatsApp, the consent is forced as the use of personal data is illegal,” said Arthur Messaud, a lawyer with an association that defends Internet users.
Since the data sharing announcement, more than 100,000 users installed Signal across the app stores of Apple and Google.
Meanwhile, Telegram picked up nearly 2.2 million downloads, according to data analytics firm Sensor Tower.
On the other hand, new installs of WhatsApp fell 11 per cent in the first seven days of 2021 compared with the week before, although it still amounted to an estimated 10.5 million downloads globally, Sensor Tower said.
However, WhatsApp has issued a new blogpost clarifying its privacy policy, reiterating that it doesn’t share private messages or sensitive location data with Facebook.
In a new blogpost, the company said, “With some of the rumours going around, we want to answer some of the common questions we have received. We go to great lengths to build WhatsApp in a way that helps people communicate privately.” The post adds that the policy “does not affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family in any way.”
It adds that the update “provides further transparency about how we collect and use data.” The detailed blog post answers questions around messages, location data, call logs, groups, etc adding that none of this data is collected nor is it shared with Facebook.
Here are the rumours that WhatsApp answers around its privacy policy:
Messages, hearing user calls: WhatsApp says it can’t read your messages “or hear your calls, and neither can Facebook.” It reiterates that WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted, adding that they “will never weaken this security and we clearly label each chat so you know our commitment.”
Logs of who everyone is messaging or calling: WhatsApp says “we believe that keeping these records for two billion users would be both a privacy and security risk and we don’t do it.”
Shared location data: WhatsApp makes it clear it does not see your shared location data and neither can Facebook. The post adds, “When you share your location with someone on WhatsApp, your location is protected by end-to-end encryption, which means no one can see your location except the people you share it with.”
Disappearing messages: WhatsApp is also reminding users that for additional privacy they can go with disappearing messages, which will be deleted from the chat after you send them. Users have to individually turn on the feature in each personal and group chat. The messages disappear after seven days.
Downloading data: Users who are worried about data WhatsApp is collecting can download this from the app. Go straight to Settings>Account> Request Account Info and hit on request report. The report is generated in three days.
E-Business
NITDA Re-Echoes Commitment to Adopting Digital Transformation

In its continued commitment towards the implementation of the present administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda, particularly in the area of improving governance for effective service delivery, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), is intensifying efforts to create a one-stop-shop portal for all government services.
The initiative aligns with the President’s directive to digitise 75% of government services by 2027, a target that is now actively being pursued by various stakeholders.
This was made known when the DG NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa CCIE and his team played host to a delegation from the Ukrainian Embassy in Nigeria led by its ambassador, Mr Ivan Kholostenko to the Corporate Headquarters of the Agency in Abuja to discuss possible areas of collaboration between the rwo countries on ways of enhancing productivity, transparency and trust in government processes.
Despite efforts made for several years at establishing a centralised e-government portal such as the OneGove.net, the NITDA DG noted that the Agency has been playing a pivotal role in shaping the design, standard guidelines, and implementation strategies towards its establishment.
He however stated that renewed commitment and extensive research into global best practices have reignited the drive for pursuing the agenda.
While stating that the Agency has been doing research on how other countries have been able to implement the unified digital government services platform, the DG said, “We have been doing research on how UK, Kenya and other countries have achieved this, so I believe we can learn from you as well to see how we can build our own.”
“While such models are not entirely transferable between nations, we can learn from their experiences to develop a framework that works for Nigeria,” he added.
Proposing an introduction of legal frameworks to back up the initiative, Inuwa disclosed that NITDA has identified multiple models from other nations that allows government agencies to provide services through an Application Programming Interface (API) while other countries provide services exclusively through designated portals backed by law.
“If we want to achieve this, we need to have these laws in place and kickstart the process of enacting the laws in other to facilitate a smooth and effective digital transformation,” he averred.
Inuwa also disclosed that the agency is engaging with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to ensure alignment with global digital governance standards and the engagement is expected to provide valuable expertise and insights into structuring Nigeria’s digital transformation roadmap.
“This initiative is seen as a critical step towards enhancing efficiency, reducing corruption, and promoting transparency in government operations. By leveraging global best practices in alignment with national policies and digital transformation goals, Nigeria will have a smart, seamless and citizen-friendly government service experience, “he concluded.
In his remark, Mr Kholostenko said that Ukraine runs a digital platform known as the Diia application which is an ecosystem that encompasses all of the state registers, databases and can perform all the state and government services for citizens in one place.
He disclosed that it is the intention of his country through its Ministry of Digital Transformation to expand the reach of this initiative and provide full support for other countries to create such kind of system.
“I want to note that we are interested to expand and help other countries to make a digital state, reduce bureaucracy, reduce time for getting state services and of course, to reduce corruption risks, because human-to-human interaction is minimal,” he said.
E-Business
UK Orders Apple to Create Backdoor for Encrypted iCloud Data

United Kingdom has issued a “technical capability notice” to Apple, mandating that the company create a backdoor to access users’ encrypted iCloud data.
This directive, issued under the Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, requires Apple to provide British security officials with the means to retrieve all content uploaded to iCloud by any user worldwide.
Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature, introduced in 2022, offers end-to-end encryption for iCloud data, ensuring that only users can access their information.
The UK’s demand challenges this security measure, potentially compelling Apple to either comply by creating the backdoor or withdraw the ADP feature from the UK market.
Compliance could set a precedent, leading other governments to request similar access, thereby raising global privacy concerns.
The UK Home Office has declined to confirm or deny the existence of such notices, stating, “We do not comment on operational matters, including, for example, confirming or denying the existence of any such notices.”
This development underscores the ongoing tension between governmental surveillance efforts and technology companies’ commitments to user privacy.
E-Business
Oracle Adds AI Pricing Features to Financial Software

Oracle on Thursday added another set of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to NetSuite, one of its corporate finance software offerings, including some that might make it faster for consumers to get a price quote on purchases like custom bicycles.
Oracle has taken a different tack with AI than rivals such as Microsoft. Rather than racing toward general purpose virtual assistants, Oracle has decided to add targeted features that speed common-but-tedious tasks like entering a brief write-up of how a sales meeting went into a corporate records system.
Another such task that is common in the business world is giving a customer a price quote on a complicated purchase that might have a lot of options, when a sales professional would need to sift through materials to come up with a price.
NetSuite on Thursday announced a feature to compile such a quote via conversation with a chatbot asking what the customer wants, which can either be used by sales professionals behind the scenes to speed up their work, or directly by consumers in the case of e-commerce businesses.
“When you buy something like a bicycle, you have to configure it – figure out what parts you want and which parts work together. We all do it when we buy our cars on the web these days,” Evan Goldberg, executive vice president of Oracle NetSuite, said.
“If you can configure (products) for customers more easily, you can do more deals in a day, or each deal costs less.”
To power those features, Oracle has decided to skip the costly race to develop huge AI models and instead works with partners such as Canadian startup Cohere.
Goldberg said that Oracle’s recent agreement to build massive data centers with ChatGPT creator OpenAI could lead to working with it as well, though the two firms have made no formal announcements.
“I think you could safely say that there’s a possibility that OpenAI will be part of this,” Goldberg told Reuters. “We are eager to work with OpenAI.”
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