WhatsApp now denies that Facebook has access to users’ private messages and calls after the messenger changed its privacy policy in early January and left all users (except for EU and UK residents) with a choice: share personal data with Facebook or completely stop using the application.
Users are forced to share phone numbers, names and profile pictures, transaction information, diagnostic data from application logs and IP addresses with Facebook.Moreover, Facebook reserves the right to share the collected data with its subsidiaries.
Therefore, if the user does not agree with the new rules, from February 8, 2021, he loses the ability to make calls and exchange messages. This means, in fact, he would not be able to use WhatsApp.
After that, the company was criticized, and began a massive outflow of users from WhatsApp, who preferred to switch to Signal, Telegram or other instant messengers.
As Facebook CEO Adam Mosseri, who heads Instagram, wrote on Twitter, there was “a lot of misinformation” around the privacy policy update, and now Facebook is trying to convince users that there is nothing to be afraid of.
WhatsApp emphasizes that Facebook will not be able to access private messages in the messenger, nor do WhatsApp employees (due to end-to-end encryption) have access to them.
In addition, neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can see the location of users they have shared with each other.
WhatsApp emphasizes that it does not share users’ contacts with Facebook or other applications. However, the FAQ also describes scenarios in which user data and messages from WhatsApp can still end up on Facebook’s servers, although this only applies to business messages. For example, this information can be used to target Facebook users.
Let me remind you that I talked about the fact that WhatsApp fixed vulnerability was dangerous for more than 3000 other Android applications.
