WhatsApp updates privacy policy, makes data-sharing with Facebook mandatory

NEW DELHI: WhatsApp Messenger is updating its terms of service and privacy policies in order to incorporate services and products offered by Facebook. Many users in India on Wednesday woke up to an alarming pop-up from the messaging-app service, asking them to either accept the new privacy rules or lose their accounts. The new changes in privacy policies and terms will come into effect on February 8.

The roll-out began late Tuesday evening when thousands of users received a notification informing them about the new changes in WhatsApp's terms of service and privacy policies. "WhatApp is updating its terms and privacy policy," the notification read. The new update makes it mandatory for the users to accept the terms and conditions in order to retain their WhatsApp account information.

The notification listed details about the messaging app’s key updates including how it processes user data and its partnership with Facebook to offer integrations across the Facebook Company Product and how businesses can use Facebook-hosted services to store and manage their WhatsApp chats.


“How businesses can use Facebook hosted services to store and manage their WhatsApp chats and How we( WhatsApp) partners with Facebook to offer integrations across the Facebook Company Products,” WhatsApp further said.

Apart from this, the messaging application has also updated its website where it provides details on its latest updates. Among other changes, the way WhatsApp collects information has been updated, too. “When a user forwards media within a message, we store that media temporarily in encrypted form on our servers to aid in more efficient delivery of additional forwards,” it said. This bit, however, wasn't there in the update that rolled out last year in December.

Earlier, the users also had an option to choose whether they wanted to share their WhatsApp data with Facebook. However, with the latest update, that option is no longer on the table. With this latest update, users remain vulnerable to their accounts having vanished permanently. While WhatsApp sought change in the New Year, Twitter, as usual, saw red, and a few complaints. “#WhatsApp is officially collecting your data from now on,” wrote one Twitter user.


“Woke up to Whatsapp's (Facebook's?) take it or leave it styled #PrivacyPolicy update. Desperate times call for moves to keep Facebook alive and relevant. It's only a matter of time from when we will move from here to something more like #Facebook is at right now... #WhatsApp,” another user wrote.


But memes on WhatsApp's new privacy policies were the highlight of the day on Twitter. Here’s what Twitterati had to say about the new update: