Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging app is giving its more than 2 billion users an ultimatum: agree to share their personal data with the social network or delete their accounts. Full story
Arstechinca
WhatsApp, Facebook’s proprietary messenger that claims to have privacy encoded in its DNA, is giving its more than 2 billion users an ultimatum: agreeing to share their personal data with the social network or deleting their accounts.
The requirement is being delivered via an in-app alert, directing users to agree to radical changes to WhatsApp’s terms of service. Those who do not accept the renewed privacy policy by February 8 will no longer be able to use the application.
In 2016, WhatsApp gave users the unique ability to cancel delivery of account data to Facebook. Now, an updated privacy policy is changing that. Next month, users will no longer have that choice. Some of the data WhatsApp collects include:
User phone numbers
Other people’s phone numbers stored in address books
Profile names
Profile photos and
Status message including when a user was last online
Diagnostic data collected from application logs
Under the new terms, Facebook reserves the right to share the data collected with its family of companies.
“As part of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives and shares information from that family of companies,” says the new privacy policy. “We can use the information we receive from them, and they can use the information we share with them to help operate, provide, improve, understand, personalize, support and market our Services and their offerings.”
The move comes a month after Apple began demanding that iOS app makers, including WhatsApp, detail the information they collect from users. WhatsApp, according to the App Store, reserves the right to collect: