Here’s Everything You Need To Know About WhatsApp’s Privacy Policy
As the new year began, WhatsApp got itself surrounded by a number of rumours and speculations about its new terms of service and policies. We all have been contemplating on how the new WhatsApp update touches us and influences our businesses. WhatsApp users raised security and privacy issues ever since the messaging app owned by the Facebook app has updated its latest privacy policy.
There has been an array of WhatsApp group messages regarding WhatsApp and its latest privacy policy. While Elon Musk is endorsing Signal as an alternative considering the latest update. The Zoho Founder, Sridhar Vembu, took it to Twitter about Arratai — our very own Made in India substitute. Currently, his team is in the testing stage of the app with family and friends. Zoho Corp’s initiation to launch the messaging app, Arattai came after WhatsApp’s recent update news in its privacy policy.
An in-app notification was sent by WhatsApp to the users stating its new terms of service and privacy policy. These new terms of WhatsApp’s service and privacy policy are scheduled to go live on February 8, 2020. To continue the services, the users have to accept the terms and conditions. The users won’t be able to use the app’s services from February 8, if they do not accept the new conditions.
Amidst all the speculation, there’s clarity from Will Cathcart himself. In the streak of tweets, the WhatsApp head clarified about the company’s updated policy. He said that update is “to be transparent and to better describe optional people-to-business features”. WhatsApp confirming that the update in no way affects users’ privacy. An official statement has been released by WhatsApp clearing the air concerning the rumours and speculations around the new terms of service and policies. Addressing some of the serious concerns of users in a blog, WhatsApp specified, that they recently updated their Privacy Policy, and are receiving many thoughtful queries.
With some rumours circulating among the users, they want to answer some of the prevalent questions they have received. They would like to go to great lengths to strengthen WhatsApp in a way that it helps people communicate more privately. They added that the policy update in any way doesn’t affect the privacy of the users’ messages. Instead, this update comprises of changes related to messaging a business for those who use WhatsApp for business purposes, which is optional and provides even more transparency in terms of data collection.
There was zero clarity about the intentions of the WhatsApp when it announced about an upcoming updated privacy policy. It was being contemplated that WhatsApp will have access to users’ private data now and will inject ads amid the chats or on the Facebook conversation. The rumours and absence of clarity had many users migrate to Signal, that is now thought to be more secure compared to WhatsApp.
However, WhatsApp has started to categorically address the concerns of its users. WhatsApp said that the app can neither see one’s private messages nor it can hear your calls, and not even Facebook. The app is not going to keep the logs of messages or calls. The Facebook-owned instant messaging app won’t be able to see one’s shared location, and neither Facebook. WhatsApp does not allow the sharing of one’s contacts with Facebook. In contrast to the rumours, the privacy of the groups is maintained. In the said blog WhatsApp didn’t fail to mention that it uses group membership to deliver messages and also to protect its services from spam and abuse. End-to-end encryption of the chats doesn’t allow the content to be read by any third party, not even WhatsApp itself.