The Facebook-owned messaging platform, WhatsApp has given its users an all too familiar ultimatum: to allow their data to be shared with Facebook or to stop using its services all together. The choice must be made by 8 February.
As of October 2020, WhatsApp had two billion users accessing the platform on a monthly basis. In 2014, WhatsApp’s went into partnership with Open Whispers System and announced that the platform would provide end-to-end encryption which is essentially a method of secure communication that prevents third-parties from accessing data while it’s transferred from one end system or device to another.
However, starting 4 January, the platform informed its users through an in-app alert on the changes that means the data collected from your interactions may be shared with Facebook. Unless you live in Europe, then the updated privacy policy doesn’t apply to you due to stronger privacy legislation. Under the new privacy policy, Facebook reserves the right to share collected data with its family of companies.
“When you or others use third-party services or other Facebook Company Products that are integrated with our Services, those third-party services may receive information about what you or others share with them,” the new privacy policy states. “For example, if you use a data backup service integrated with our Services (like iCloud or Google Drive), they will receive information you share with them, such as your WhatsApp messages.”
To find out more about WhatsApp’s privacy policy, visit this page.
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