The European Commission has charged Facebook with providing misleading information during its takeover of the online messaging service WhatsApp, opening the company to a possible fine of 1 per cent of its turnover.

However, the statement of objections sent to Facebook will not affect the EC's approval of the $US22 billion ($30.4 billion) merger in 2014, the Commission said in a statement on Tuesday.

Facebook becomes the latest Silicon Valley target of EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who has demanded Apple pay back €13 billion in taxes to Ireland and hit Google with two market abuse investigations.

The issue regards a WhatsApp privacy policy change in August when it said it would share some users' phone numbers with parent company Facebook, triggering investigations by a number of EU data protection authorities.