Since Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014, users have wondered and worried about what proportion data would flow between the 2 platforms. Many of them experienced a rude awakening in the week , as a brand new in-app notification raises awareness a few step WhatsApp actually took to share more with Facebook back in 2016.
On Monday, WhatsApp updated its terms of use and privacy policy, primarily to expand on its practices around how WhatsApp business users can store their communications. A pop-up has been notifying users that as of February 8, the app's privacy policy will change and that they must accept the terms to stay using the app. As a part of that privacy policy refresh, WhatsApp also removed a passage about opting out of sharing certain data with Facebook: "If you're an existing user, you'll be able to choose to not have your WhatsApp account information shared with Facebook to enhance your Facebook ads and products experiences."
Some media outlets and confused WhatsApp users understandably assumed that this meant WhatsApp had finally crossed a line, requiring data-sharing with no alternative. But actually the corporate says that the privacy policy deletion simply reflects how WhatsApp has shared data with Facebook since 2016 for the overwhelming majority of its now 2 billion-plus users.
When WhatsApp launched a serious update to its privacy policy in August 2016, it started sharing user information and metadata with Facebook. At that point , the messaging service offered its billion existing users 30 days to cop out of at least a number of the sharing. If you chose to cop out at the time, WhatsApp will still honor that choice. The feature is long gone from the app settings, but you'll check whether you're opted out through the “Request account info” function in Settings.
Meanwhile, the billion-plus users WhatsApp has added since 2016, along side anyone who missed that opt-out window, have had their data shared with Facebook all this point . WhatsApp emphasized to WIRED that this week's privacy policy changes don't actually impact WhatsApp's existing practices or behavior around sharing data with Facebook.
“Our updated Terms and Privacy Policy provide more information on how we process your data, and our commitment to privacy,” WhatsApp wrote on Monday. “As a part of the Facebook Companies, WhatsApp partners with Facebook to supply experiences and integrations across Facebook’s family of apps and products.”
"I don’t trust any product made by Facebook."
said Evan Greer, Fight for the longer term
None of this has at any point impacted WhatsApp's marquee feature: end-to-end encryption. Messages, photos, and other content you send and receive on WhatsApp can only be viewed on your smartphone and therefore the devices of the people you select to message with. WhatsApp and Facebook itself can't access your communications. In fact, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly affirmed his commitment to expanding end-to-end encryption offerings as a part of tying the company's different communication platforms together. But that does not mean there's not still a trove of other data WhatsApp can collect and share about how you employ the app. the corporate says it collects user information "to operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services.”
In practice, this suggests that WhatsApp shares tons of intel with Facebook, including account information like your telephone number , logs of how long and the way often you employ WhatsApp, information about how you interact with other users, device identifiers, and other device details like IP address, OS , browser details, battery health information, app version, mobile network, language and zone . Transaction and payment data, cookies, and site information also are all prey to share with Facebook counting on the permissions you grant WhatsApp within the first place.
“WhatsApp is great for shielding the privacy of your message content,” says Johns Hopkins University cryptographer Matthew Green. “But it seems like the privacy of everything else you are doing is up for grabs."
Facebook purchased WhatsApp in 2014 and declared at the time that it and therefore the company's chat platform Messenger would operate as “standalone” products. The slow shift toward integration has been controversial internally, and should have contributed to the departure in late 2017 and 2018, respectively, of WhatsApp co-founders Brian Acton and Jan Koum. a couple of months after leaving, Acton cofounded the nonprofit Signal Foundation. The organization maintains and develops the open source Signal Protocol, which WhatsApp and therefore the secure messaging app Signal, among others, use to implement end-to-end encryption.
“Today privacy is becoming a way more mainstream discussion,” Acton said at the WIRED25 conference in 2019. "People are asking questions on privacy, and that they want security and privacy built into the terms of service.”
Though this week's WhatsApp privacy policy revisions don't actually alter the messaging service's behavior, it's significant that users may have thought the corporate was offering an opt-out option all these years that did not actually exist. A level of data-sharing that some users afflict and even fear has already been happening . Given the truth that Facebook has owned WhatsApp for the higher a part of a decade, this clarification seems to some like simply reckoning with the inevitable.
“I don’t trust any product made by Facebook,” says Evan Greer, deputy director of the digital rights group Fight for the longer term . “Their business model is surveillance. always remember that.”
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