One of the largest social media platforms and texting applications, WhatsApp recently updated its ‘Terms and Conditions’ for the use of the app, and people are angry about it. In a nutshell, users have until February 8 to accept the terms and conditions, or else they can say goodbye to the app. The particular thing in the new terms and conditions everyone is mad about is ‘sharing of WhatsApp data’ with Facebook. However, the ‘Privacy Policy’ of the app is still the same, meaning none of the chat data will ever be shared with Facebook. So what is it that Facebook will take from WhatsApp data of the users? Keep reading ahead to find out.
What Data Will Facebook Extract From WhatsApp?
While Facebook won’t have any access to the texting platform’s chat data, according to the new terms and conditions, it will take a plethora of other personal data of the users. Precisely, this data would be - phone number of the user, transaction details of all the payments done via WhatsApp, information on how a user interacts with businesses, service-related information, IP address, and mobile device information. What’s peculiar is the collection of device hardware information by Facebook.
So why is Facebook collecting WhatsApp data?
Facebook said that it wants to enhance the way users interact with its products. It aims to personalise the ads for users. The company will share the data collected with businesses, and it has explained how it will happen in the ‘Business’ privacy policy of the platform. But this does not mean that users have to worry about ads being displayed on WhatsApp. Rumours about this happening were making rounds in the internet community, but it looks like the company is not going with such a plan after all. But yes, Facebook will use this data for improving ad experience for the users across its suite of products.
Is WhatsApp Storing Messages?
Users don’t have to worry about their private chat data getting into the wrong hands. WhatsApp doesn’t store any messages. As soon as a message is delivered to the receiver, it is deleted from the servers. In case a message is not delivered, it can stay in the servers up till 30 days, but after that, it will be deleted. Many users have been flocking to other texting applications since the time WhatsApp updated its terms and conditions. ‘Signal’ is one such application which has benefitted the most from the hit WhatsApp had to take.
