WhatsApp Privacy Policy changes, but what’s actually changing?
It is one of the most popular messaging app being used in recent times, it is primarily being used for social networking to connect with friends & families. In the recent past, WhatsApp has also enabled features for businesses to use the app to promote their products & services. There was news going around in social media around changes in WhatsApp privacy policy and there are a lot of interpretations are being made of the same. In this article, we are sharing our views on WhatsApp new privacy policy & how it impacts people in general.
WhatsApp, the name itself is self-explanatory; as every school-going kid nowadays knows about this amazing app. It’s a message serving app which uses the internet to run. The user interface of the app is so easy & convenient that it is very popular with people of all ages. It provides features like group chatting, voice messages, location sharing, status sharing, etc.
Currently, WhatsApp has a user base of more than 1 billion users across the world and is the biggest online messaging app. It was founded by ex-Yahoo employees Jan Koum and Bran Acton in the year 2009. It was a small startup initially but eventually swelled to 2,50,000 users in just a few months. This number of users was growing so rapidly that the owners have to charge a subscription fee for using the app to slow down the rate of users. In 2014, it was acquired by Facebook.
WhatsApp Privacy Policy Update
WhatsApp has recently announced about new privacy policy. The most rumored question is “What is WhatsApp’s new privacy policy, what changes and why it’s a worry?”
WhatsApp has launched its privacy policy with a goal to address how people will talk to businesses. It clarified that it has released the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page to emphasize that it doesn’t read private messages.As informed by WhatsApp, below are the list of changes in WhatsApp privacy policy:
- WhatsApp can’t see your personal messages as they are end-to-end ecrypted or hear your calls and neither can Facebook.
- WhatsApp does not keep logs of who everyone is messaging or calling.
- When you share your location with someone on Facebook or WhatsApp your location is end-to-end encrypted, which means no one else can see your location.
- WhatsApp group remains private.
- Additional security that WhatsApp is providing is you choose to set your messages to disappear from chat after you send them.
The Backlash
WhatsApp has announced that its privacy policy was in full force to be applied from February 8, 2021; but faced a lot of backlash from people to accept it. Hence, WhatsApp has delayed its new privacy policy by a few months to May 15, 2021. The opposition of people was so strong that around 25 million new users signed up to Telegram and Signal, making Signal the number one app in its category in many parts of the world.
WhatsApp has shared in its official statement that “WhatsApp was built on a simple idea: what you share with your friends and family stays between you. This means we will always protect your personal conversations with end-to-end encryption so that neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can see these private messages. It’s why we don’t keep logs of who everyone’s messaging or calling. We also can’t see your shared location and we don’t share your contacts with Facebook,”.
Now, the fact that needs to be brought to light is that WhatsApp already shares a lot of information with Facebook. As it is said that update doesn’t expand the ability to share data with Facebook, that’s because it has been able to share your data for years now. Since 2016, WhatsApp data has been shared with Facebook but it has now been noticed more. If we look at affiliate company section of the privacy policy, it states that Facebook can use personal information on a profile about you more accurately and use that to serve you ads or show friends suggestions.
Conclusion
So, the apple of discord remains as it is, WhatsApp should now draw a line between what’s private and what’s not. As said in 2014, it would be unable to match WhatsApp and Facebook accounts reliably, but that doesn’t hold true. People should now give a break to Facebook and WhatsApp to think about their privacy policy which was not private until now.
Disclaimer: Our endeavor is to bring the insights about the most relevant & critical topics concerning most of the people. However, the views we share are personal and it may differ from opinions any individual may have. The information shared here is for the readers to make informed decisions.
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A certified Digital Marketing practitioner with experience in building & implementing digital strategies to transform businesses. I focus on graphic designing, web designing, UI/UX, content writing, social media moderator, and many more practices to help businesses achieve their digital goals. I am a passionate content writer & blogger to share my learning & spread awareness. I am a co-founder & Design Strategist at ascendIT Consulting.