WhatsApp recently said in their FAQ page that they will be sharing some information with Facebook and the Facebook family of companies. They say this is being done to help better co-ordinate with these companies and make for a better ad experience in the future. They also said that Facebook users might see better friend suggestions with this shared information. Besides, fighting spam and abuse and verifying authenticity of the unique user accounts are also features that might make it through. After being acquired by Facebook in 2014, this is the first time WhatsApp is updating its terms and conditions as well as its privacy policy.
WhatsApp will be sharing information like, “the phone number you verified when you registered with WhatsApp” and “the last time you used our service”.
WhatsApp promises on their newly updated FAQ page that nothing we share on WhatsApp, such as messages, photos and account information will be shared with Facebook or any of the Facebook family of companies. And according to what we know about the end-to-end encryption WhatsApp is now renowned for, nobody except you or the person you are talking to should be able to see what you are sharing. Even the information that you are sharing with Facebook, will not be visible to everyone.
But even after all this, if you are uncomfortable with this sharing of information you have the choice to turn it off.
To do that, you will need to
1. Open WhatsApp.
2. Tap Settings.
3. Select Account.
4. Tap “Share my account info”.
5. Tap “ Don’t share.”
A slight pop up tells you that the decision cannot be changed in the future. And after that the whole option disappears.
Done.
For users who do not have a Facebook account, just keep using WhatsApp as you have been doing. No changes for you.
