What is WhatsApp's new Privacy Policy and should you worry about it?
The main cause of this new Privacy Policy is to integrate better with Facebook's services and gather financial data from its users.
First, let's take a look a what information WhatsApp collects from you.
- Your Account Information (your Phone number, and a profile name. which is necessary to create an account on WhatsApp.)
- Your Messages (No, they do not retain your messages in the course of providing services to you. Once your messages are delivered, they are deleted from their servers. They offer end-to-end encryption for their services which means they are protected from WhatsApp and other Third parties.)
- Your Connections (you can find your friends and family by using the contact upload feature. It basically takes your phone's contacts and add those to your WhatsApp Contacts)
The Data WhatsApp is collecting and will be sharing with Facebook includes location data, IP addresses, phone model, OS, time zone, signal strength, browser, Internet Service Provider, mobile network, language, battery level, and even IMEI. There’s also the information about how you are messaging, calling, what groups you are attending, the Status, the profile photo, last time you were online, etc.
WhatsApp added a separate section in their Privacy Policy Called "Transactions And Payments Data". which means the Platform can and will process information related to payments made through their App "for analytical purposes"
All of the data that WhatsApp collects from the user will now be shared with Facebook and the companies that work with Facebook.
Maybe it is the time we start looking for other alternatives such as "Signal" or "Telegram"
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