WhatsApp has updated it’s policy four days ago. It has added a new feature to make payments. The users have to accept the policy by 8th February, 2021. This update has been released in Android as well as in IOS.
WhatsApp was launched in 2009, and it gained over 400 million users in four years. As it is a messaging application, people use it majorly depending on its privacy policies. The old policy used to start with the sentence, ‘Respect for your privacy is coded into our DNA’.
In 2014, Facebook bought the application. Over time, Whatsapp has changed its terms and conditions, however the new policy comes with a dangerous condition, i.e, if users don’t want to share their information with Facebook, they might have to quit WhatsApp. Though the messages still remain end-to-end encrypted.
With this new policy, WhatsApp updates three things. Their service and how they process their users’ data. The kind of information Whatsapp will be collecting from their users are location, IP addresses, model of the phone, OS, battery level, mobile network and signal strength, browser, ISP, language, time zone, and even IMEI.
WhatsApp can now effectively collect user data including registration information, transaction and location information. These information can be shared with Facebook hosted business services, and Facebook’s company partners offering integration across Facebook owned applications.
Most people aren’t happy with the new policies. Elon Musk has tweeted and asked people to, “Use Signal”. There is also another application, called Telegram. These applications strictly keep users’ data confidential.