Decoding WhatsApp’s New Privacy Policy
- Eashan Trehan
- Jan 18, 2021
- 2 min read
Written by Eashan Trehan
In 2014, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for US$ 9 billion, a popular messaging service with approximately 2.5 billion users across the globe. While Facebook had so far remained reluctant to monetise their popular chat app, that stance is about to change. So let us look at what Facebook’s motivation is, what this new privacy policy entails, and how it may affect you.
The Facebook social media platform’s user growth has hit somewhat of a stumbling block, motivating the company to focus more on WhatsApp and Instagram to keep the till ringing. As a result, starting 8th February 2021, WhatsApp users’ data will be shared with Facebook, allowing them to monetise the immense volume of data collected from people messaging each other over the app. This data can then be utilised by Facebook to learn more about their users and show more accurate targeted advertisements.
From a user’s perspective one should be aware that the user data collected by Facebook, through WhatsApp, could include your location, phone number, device information, usage statistics, and other personal data. Moreover, a user cannot decline the new privacy policy and should they choose to delete WhatsApp altogether, whatever data belonging to them has already been collected by Facebook in the past, will remain with the company and not be deleted in tandem. Following past scandals of data privacy violations at Facebook, such as the infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal, this new move has led to a surge in downloads of rival chat apps like Telegram and Signal, which are viewed as more secure from a data privacy perspective. A new debate has now sparked, questioning how much do we trust Facebook with our personal data.
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