WhatsApp Made Another Statement Regarding its New Privacy Policy

For quite some time, we have been reading news about WhatsApp’s new privacy policy issue. The company was emotional about its new privacy policy and warned users to accept the policy or bear the punishment of getting limited access to their accounts. But, this giant messaging app forgot the consequences it may have to face from its mass users and the local governments. And so it happened that the company might not have expected.

Before getting deep, let me give you a quick overview of what is involved in the new privacy policy. According to this policy, WhatsApp would share app data including:

• Profile name
• Profile picture
• IP address
• Phone number
• Contacts list
• App logs
• Status Messages

So it is almost everything, other than your conversations. For now, the company said it would share this data with Facebook (its parent company), Onavo, and CrowdTangle.

Previously the company said it would limit account accessibility if a user does not accept the new policy. This caused a kind of chaos and people started shifting to other apps like Telegram and Signal, given WhatsApp a losing end. Besides this, local governments also started intervening while stopping the company from enforcing such harsh policies.

Following this backlash, the company first extended the deadline and now said it would not limit the functionality. In a recent statement to The Verge, a WhatsApp spokesperson said:

Given recent discussions with various authorities and privacy experts, we want to make clear that we will not limit the functionality of how WhatsApp works for those who have not yet accepted the update.

Statement to The Verge

According to various sources, some countries like Germany, Turkey, and India strongly condemned this policy and stood against it.

With time, we see the company is going lenient following the challenges proposed by other counter apps and countries. Nothing is for sure, but who could say the company might step back from this policy.