WhatsApp: new Privacy Policy

On January 4, WhatsApp informed all its users about important changes in its Privacy Policy, setting February 8, 2021 as the dead line to accept or unsubscribe, although the date was changed to May 15, 2021.

Since this news appeared, millions of users around the world have moved to Signal or Telegram and there have been many reactions to the changes proposed by the instant messaging social network, but why so much commotion? We tell you about it.

WhatsApp in the world except in Europe

We recall that WhatsApp is one of Facebook’s companies, as is Instagram or Facebook Messenger.Instagram or Facebook Messenger is also.

If you are a user from outside the European Union and you accept the new WhatsApp Privacy Policy conditions, you will be accepting, for example, the following:

Sharing WhatsApp data with Facebook and third parties
Processing of transaction and payment account data such as payment method, shipment details and transaction amount
Information will be automatically collected related to messages, groups, calls, statuses, payments and profile picture.
The location of the device can be shared, as well as the user’s IP.

These changes seem to be part of an overall objective to integrate all user data from Facebook’s different platforms, understandable from a business perspective, but unacceptable from a user privacy point of view.

What is happening in Europe?

Although the changes to WhatsApp’s Privacy Policy in Europe have been minimal, the demonstrations of well-known global figures and hoaxes have caused an unprecedented stampede and although there is no official data from WhatsApp, there is from its direct competitor Telegram, through the voice of its co-founder Pavel Durov, who announced on his own network, that in just 72 hours Telegram gained 25 million users worldwide, already exceeding 500 million.

WhatsApp is aware of the restrictions that the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) imposes on the processing of personal data of its citizens, which is why they offer their services in Europe (European Union and what they call European Region) through its European subsidiary WhatsApp Ireland Limited, only for European users. Being therefore this organization, subject to compliance with data protection regulations, as any company on European Union soil.

Although it is true that WhatsApp guarantees in its European privacy policy the end-to-end encryption of conversations, photos and content, it is also necessary to know that if the user agrees to make backup copies and chooses Google Drive for it, Google will have access to the content of the copy as it is obvious. Something similar happens if the user uses third party platforms, to play content for example on Facebook, this third party can access certain user information (IP or the fact of being a WhatsApp user).

Watch for further reactions

The truth is that the European authorities have in the past confronted Facebook on grounds of compliance with the European Data Protection Regulation, as happened in the case Ireland vs Facebook.

We will have to pay close attention to the reactions of experts and control bodies to analyze their reactions and positions on these controversial changes.

We recommend all WhatsApp users to read carefully these new Privacy Policies and Terms of Use of the application before accepting it and if they have doubts know that there are interesting alternatives.