Last Updated on December 14, 2020

Facebook has announced that it has made a major change in its WhatsApp’s privacy policy. Its existing users will soon receive a notification update to the apps privacy terms & conditions. This new Terms & Conditions announce that it will share some WhatsApp user data with Facebook.

This includes ads targeting purposes on Facebook pages. The information shared will include phone number which the user used to verify their account and the last time the user used the service. The information shared is not something you share with a data mining tech giant. Though, users can partially opt-out from sharing the information to WhatsApp.

How to restrict WhatsApp from sharing your user data

Unfortunately, there is no way to totally opt out apart from deleting your account from not using WhatsApp. When the notification pop out, don’t tap Agree, instead tap read which is highlighted in blue. You will then see a control at the bottom of the screen. Please uncheck the box.

If you have already agreed to WhatsApp’s privacy policy, you will have an additional 30 days to make this choice by going to Settings > Account > Share my account info in the app. On doing so you will see the same control at the bottom of the screen, then uncheck the box to opt out.

Remember: You may not totally reject sharing your user data with WhatsApp .