Ali Hasan
WhatsApp’s New Privacy Policy
We all use WhatsApp in our everyday lives and now it has become an integral part of our existence. We receive most of the text messages, videos, images, audio files, and even fake news through social messenger.
Everything was going well for WhatsApp as it had millions of users sending billions of messages through it but looks like things have taken a wrong turn like a lot of people are concerned about its new privacy policy.
If you haven’t heard by now, let me tell you about it in detail. WhatsApp has updated its terms of services and privacy policy, making it compulsory for its users to share their data with its parent company, Facebook. This means that it will track all your activity on WhatsApp and the formation will be used by Facebook to run ads or whatever they might to with your data.
While users were able to opt-out until now, starting February 8, they will have only 2 options. Either allow it to track you or if you don’t want to share your online activity to be tracked then uninstall the app and stop using the service completely.
This privacy policy came just after Facebook had a fight with Apple regarding the tracking of user activity. Apple wanted more privacy and security. They wanted to give the power of consent in the hands of users but Facebook wanted to track them anyway. This privacy policy could be a result of that ongoing conflict.
This is the information that it will be collecting from you:-
- Location Data,
- IP Addresses,
- Phone Model,
- OS,
- Battery Level,
- Signal Strength,
- Browser,
- Mobile Network,
- ISP,
- Language,
- Time Zone &
- IMEI.
WhatsApp even added a separate section called “Transactions and Payments data” specifying the platform will process additional information even for payments, made through the app. The company claims this is for analytics purposes, although it would provide its unique identifiers to other Facebook Companies.
The Privacy Policy is rolling out globally, however, users located in the European Union received only one bullet point in their notification. Thanks to tighter privacy legislation better known as GDPR, the WhatsApp users in 27 European countries will not have their data shared with third parties.
One thing is sure that whatever little autonomy WhatsApp had is now gone completely. WhatsApp is now completely integrated with Facebook and if you’re on the platform, then your data isn’t your data anymore. Both WhatsApp and Facebook can use them in any way they want to.
Pro Tip – Stop sending nudes on WhatsApp for God’s Sake.
