Just two months have passed since WhatsApp became involved in a global privacy controversy, after the app announced that it was updating its privacy policy to start sharing more data with Facebook in connection with WhatsApp users’ conversations with companies. The company eventually declared that it would extend the period before users had to accept their new Terms of Service.
However, while the company still plans to apply its new terms of service starting in May, the company has started to make some privacy improvements to its popular voice note service. The company recently updated its privacy settings to comply with the “Reading Receipts” setting for voice notes, just as it does for messages sent on the platform.
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WABetaInfo, which leaked the WhatsApp feature, first identified the feature, noting that “… We don’t know if WhatsApp will restore the old behavior (about the read receipt feature) in the next updates (because they haven’t implemented this change in the Android version yet), but at the moment the situation is like that. “
Most users will not mind the change, while some who are concerned about privacy may even appreciate it. But for the rest, which depended on the feature to control whether your voice notes were heard, the new feature may not be very welcome. Now, if the recipient has previously disabled Read Receipts, you will not be able to see if they have heard your message, even if you have turned on Read Receipts.
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If you are a WhatsApp user in the latest version of the iOS app, you can access the WhatsApp settings menu, go to Account and tap Privacy and make the necessary changes to start protecting your privacy. It is not known whether the Android version of WhatsApp will add the same toggle button, but it is likely to arrive in a future version.