Last Updated on December 14, 2020

Some days ago, there has been an outburst of broadcast campaigns on WhatsApp over its updated Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. This broadcast, informally known as BC, was made to be an alerted notice of action to all WhatsApp users – the excerpt says

The owner of Facebook has gone beyond our notice to link WhatsApp and Facebook together so that any chat you made with your friends, love ones will appear on Facebook for everyone to see…

When I saw this on a WhatsApp group, I thought this might be a sign of end time. But I quickly remembered its earlier updated end-to-end encryption. In case you have no idea about it.

WhatsApp end-to-end encryption won’t allow anyone except your chat mates to view your chats i.e everything becomes fully your property without nobody tracking your chat logs.

From WhatsApp faq blog post, it reads – “We are updating our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy to make them easier to understand and to reflect new WhatsApp features and services.

For example, our updated Terms and Privacy Policy refer to new features such as WhatsApp Calling, WhatsApp for web and desktop, and end-to-end encryption, as well as our plans to help you communicate with businesses using our service.” Read more on their blog post.

What information will WhatsApp share with Facebook and companies?

From a report in New Delhi court, Senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for WhatsApp said that the users’ privacy is maintained as it doesn’t have access to any data as it provides end-to-end encryption.

Luthra said that only a user’s name & phone number  you verified when you registered with WhatsApp, as well as the last time you used our service are shared with Facebook, nothing else.

Adding that they were in compliance with the central government’s regulations for messenger apps. “We are not dealing with sensitive information at all, “Luthra said, & added that, “if any of the user wants to opt out of the new policy, he/she cannot be forced to not choose that option.” Learn how to disable WhatsApp privacy policy.

screenshot of privacy policy campaign

In addition, WhatsApp stated that “We plan to share some information with Facebook and the Facebook family of companies that will allow us to coordinate more, such as to fight spam and abuse, and improve experiences across our services and those of Facebook and the Facebook family”.

Also, “nothing you share on WhatsApp, including your messages, photos, and account information, will be shared onto Facebook or any of the Facebook family of apps for others to see. This means, that information will not be seen by other people on Facebook.”

Is there still any cause for alarm?

When it comes to any tech companies, I would not give a 5 star trust to their promises. If there has been some needs to sharing my mobile number and name to other companies in partnership with Facebook, then I’m opting out.

WhatsApp might not be the first tech company to share users data, what about our local service providers? When you come across any sms from short code numbers (33100, 3329 and others), they are just for promotional purposes.

I would click on the disable privacy policy button. Although, behind the scene it may not actually work.