WhatsApp clarifies privacy practices after the increase in Signal and Telegram users

WhatsApp posted a new FAQ page on its website describing its views on user privacy in response to the widespread reaction against an upcoming privacy policy update. The central issue is related to WhatsApp’s data sharing procedures with Facebook, with many users concerned about an updated privacy policy that will take effect on February 8 and will require the sharing of confidential profile information with the parent company of WhatsApp .

This is not true – the update has nothing to do with consumer chats or profile data, and instead the change was designed to describe how companies using WhatsApp for customer service can store logs of their chats on Facebook servers. This is something that the company feels it should disclose in its privacy policy, which it is doing now after predicting future changes to business chats in October.

But a wave of misinformation on social media, not helped by Facebook’s abysmal history of privacy and its reputation for overshadowing changes to its various terms of service agreements, resulted in a violent WhatsApp reaction that sent users fleeing to competitors like Signal and Telegram.

Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, even joined the fray, tweeting last week “Use Signal” to its more than 42 million followers. As the controversy grew, Signal became one of the most downloaded apps on Android and iOS and its verification system to register new users repeatedly gave way under pressure. Telegram, which is currently number 2 behind Signal on the App Store, has seen over 25 million new users sign up in the past 72 hours.

WhatsApp executives, as well as Instagram chief Adam Mosseri and Facebook AR / VR chief Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, are now trying to clear things up, perhaps with little benefit at this point.

“We want to make it clear that updating the policy does not affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family in any way. Instead, this update includes changes related to sending messages to a company on WhatsApp, which is optional, and provides more transparency about how we collect and use the data, ”writes the company on the new FAQ page.

It also emphasizes in the FAQ that neither Facebook nor WhatsApp read users’ message logs or listen to their calls, and that WhatsApp does not store user location data or share contact information with Facebook. (It is also important to note that data sharing with Facebook is extremely limited for European users due to stronger user privacy protections in the EU.)

WhatsApp boss Will Cathcart also accessed Twitter a few days ago to post a topic (later shared by Bosworth in the tweet above) trying to cut through the mess and explain what’s really going on.

“With end-to-end encryption, we can’t see your private chats or calls and neither can Facebook. We are committed to this technology and to defending it globally ”, wrote Cathcart. “It is important for us to make it clear that this update describes business communication and does not change WhatsApp’s data sharing practices with Facebook. It does not affect how people communicate privately with friends or family, wherever they are. ”

A bit of irony in all of this is that the data sharing that WhatsApp users are so eager to avoid is probably already happening for the vast majority of those who use the messaging platform. The company allowed users to choose not to share data with Facebook for only a brief period in 2016, two years after Facebook bought the platform.

After that, new registrations and those who did not manually opt for data sharing had some information from WhatsApp, mainly their phone number and profile name, shared with the larger social network for ad targeting and other purposes. (If you gave up, WhatsApp says it will honor that even after the February 8 update, according to PCMag.)

If you look at WhatsApp privacy labels on the App Store, Apple labels just last month started to force developers to disclose, you’ll see a lot of information marked as “data linked to you”, although just a unique device ID and application usage data is listed as used for “developer advertising and marketing”. (WhatsApp tried publicly to call Apple for not making its own primary apps adhere to the same standards, only for Apple to respond that it actually lists privacy labels for the iOS apps it develops.)

In the impending change in privacy policy, the language regarding data sharing with Facebook has changed, leading many to believe that mandatory new data sharing was a new change that could not be avoided – although it happened all the time. “As part of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives and shares information from that family of companies,” says WhatsApp’s 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.”

All of this controversy can be attributed to users who misinterpreted the confused media reports, drew hasty conclusions and then participated in alarmism on social networks. But it is also a reality that Facebook must face that the lack of trust in WhatsApp is directly related to years of Facebook’s bad faith privacy promises and increasingly complex terms of service agreements that no regular non-lawyer user can understand. reasonably.

It is no wonder that users are migrating to an application like Signal – run by a non-profit organization and subsisting on donations and wealthy benefactors like none other than WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton – when they feel they can no longer trust the that’s really happening when they text their friends on their smartphones. Now Facebook and WhatsApp face a long road of transparent communication and confidence building ahead if they want to get those people back.