Brazil arrests Latin America Facebook director

The Brazilian police have arrested and detained the deputy director of the Latin American branch of Facebook and Instagram. A judge has ordered it because WhatsApp refuses to release conversations of an alleged drug gang.

WhatsApp itself does not have an office in Brazil, but is owned by Facebook. That is why Diego Dzodan, the local vice president of the social network, is said to have been arrested, according to The Guardian. The court wants WhatsApp to release conversations of an alleged group of drug smugglers. The federal police allegedly submitted a request to the company three times, which was rejected on all occasions.

The judge then imposed a fine of initially 50,000 real and later 1 million real per day, approximately 233,000 euros. After that also failed, the judge ordered Dzodan to be arrested on charges of obstructing the police investigation.

Facebook calls the arrest “extreme and disproportionate.” The company says that WhatsApp acts independently and that Dzodan as Facebook CEO cannot be held responsible. Furthermore, Facebook emphasizes that WhatsApp does not have the requested information, because the chat conversations are not stored on a server, but only locally on the telephones of the conversation participants. In addition, the chats are provided with end-to-end encryption.

At the end of 2015, Brazil was already in conflict with WhatsApp. At the time, a judge decided to block the service for 48 hours. Even then, the court demanded information and the company was unable or unwilling to provide it. Another judge ensured that this blockade was lifted early. He did not consider it reasonable that the users were the victims of the case between the government and WhatsApp.