WhatsApp and artificial intelligence
Tech Provider
A Tech Provider, in Meta's terminology, is a software provider that builds the WhatsApp Business Platform into its product and onboards its clients so they can use WhatsApp through it. It has to verify its business with Meta and pass Meta's review of its app.
Also known astechnology provider · WhatsApp integrator · WhatsApp partner
What it is exactly
Meta distinguishes two roles for anyone offering WhatsApp to third parties. The Solution Partner provides the full service, can extend a credit line to its clients and invoice them itself. The Tech Provider offers similar services, on its own or together with a Solution Partner, but without a credit line. To become one, it verifies its business with Meta and passes the review of its app, with advanced access to the messaging and WhatsApp account management permissions. Clients are usually onboarded through Embedded Signup, Meta's flow in which the client connects its own account and phone number.
For a residence, the useful question is not the name of the role but what is done with the messages. Whoever builds the WhatsApp Business Platform in on the residence's behalf processes its residents' data, and that has its place under the GDPR: controller and processor.
Worth knowing
What people take for granted: that the Tech Provider pays Meta and passes the cost on. Not in this model: the client adds its own payment method and Meta charges the client for its API usage, such as the templates behind announcements; the Tech Provider invoices its own service separately.
Sources
Related terms
- WhatsApp Business PlatformThe WhatsApp Business Platform is Meta's platform for organisations to handle WhatsApp at scale from their own software, through the Cloud API, instead of by hand from the WhatsApp Business app on a phone. It comes with its own system of approved templates and sending rules.
- Controller and processorThe controller is whoever decides what personal data are processed for and how; the processor is whoever processes them on the controller's behalf. In a residence, the centre is the controller of its residents' data, and the software supplier or the caterer that handles them for it is a processor.