“Lanre, have you seen the new WhatsApp privacy policy,” my boss asked as he arrived at the office. At this time, I haven’t seen the new policy because my WhatsApp was not the latest version. But I had checked some trend comment after seeing WhatsApp in my top Twitter trend. Most comments, however, were not from Nigerians.
WhatsApp, a cross-platform free messaging service has been under cross-fire for its mandatory request that its users must agree to its privacy policy update.
Users were more worried about the content of the policy than the mandated deadline itself.
In the Information You And We Share section of the key updates, WhatsApp stated that; “You share your information as you use and communicate through our Services, and we share your information to help us operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services.
“We work with third-party service providers and other Facebook Companies to help us operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services.
“We work with these companies to support our Services, such as to provide technical infrastructure, delivery and other systems; market our Services; conduct surveys and research for us; protect the safety, security and integrity of users and others; and assist with customer service.
“When we share information with third-party service providers and other Facebook Companies in this capacity, we require them to use your information on our behalf in accordance with our instructions and terms.”
Based on the above, it can be deduced that WhatsApp indeed shares users data with Facebook, its parent company. Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014 for a whopping sum of $19 billion.
However, the shared data cannot be ascertained if it includes users messages which it promised would be end-to-end encrypted.
Source:Vanguard