What’s going on?

Last week, WhatsApp announced its latest policy update which allows sharing of information with its family of companies (Facebook Inc).

The information being shared includes users mobile phone number and basic information. It also collects and shares user activity, how often you use WhatsApp, features you use, your profile photo, your status and ‘about’ information.

It also collects device-level information like what device you use, your mobile network, IP address, among others. It also collects and uses precise location information from your device, but with your permission.

Whatsapp says: “We may use the information we receive from them, and they may use the information we share with them, to help operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services and their offerings, including the Facebook Company Products,”.

WhatsApp indicated that users may not be able to access their WhatsApp accounts if they do not accept the new terms and agreements.

Now, this new updated policy which will come into effect on Feb 8 has caused a lot of concern among users.

As the controversy grew, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey started to endorse ‘Signal’, another messaging platform. This has led Signal to become one of the most downloaded apps with over 7.5 million downloads last week. Meanwhile, Telegram, which is currently No. 2 behind Signal on the App Store, saw more than 25 million new users sign up in just the last 72 hours.


READ: Signal, Telegram see demand spike as new WhatsApp terms stir debate

Here’s what WhatsApp has to say about the recent changes of policy:

The update has nothing to do with consumer chats or profile data. Instead, the change is designed to outline how businesses who use WhatsApp for customer service may store logs of its chats on Facebook servers.

What this means is that Facebook and WhatsApp will now also be able to share certain payments and transactions data in order to boost advertising, as the company pushes further into e-commerce with the development of digital storefront features such as Facebook Shops. 

The changes also outline how merchants communicating with customers via WhatsApp can choose to store those chats in Facebook-hosted servers, and use that data to inform their advertising on Facebook.

WhatsApp’s response to concerns:


WhatsApp chief Will Cathcart explained on Twitter: “With end-to-end encryption, we cannot see your private chats or calls and neither can Facebook. We’re committed to this technology and committed to defending it globally.”

In fact, Facebook executive Adam Mosseri, who heads Instagram said that there was “a lot of misinformation” about an update to terms of service regarding an option to use WhatsApp to message businesses.

READ: WhatsApp stresses privacy as users flock to rivals

What now?

According to a CNBC report, Vice President of insights at Apptopia, Adam Blacker said despite the surge in Signal and Telegram downloads, WhatsApp has not seen a decline.

“It’s too ingrained. My guess is there is a very small number of people who use WhatsApp daily that is recently deleting it.

“Even those who are downloading and using Signal or Telegram will continue to use WhatsApp as that is where most of their friends and family are. They may start to talk to certain people on Signal but still chat with their mom on WhatsApp.” Blacker said.

While we acknowledge some might have doubts and concerns regarding the new policy, if we do not agree to the terms, we may opt to delete WhatsApp before Feb 8.

You can read the updated policy here:
https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/updates/terms-of-service

Further information on the policy can also be found here:
https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/answering-your-questions-about-whatsapps-privacy-policy