WhatsApp is now used over hundreds of millions of people or around half a billion people, and now it is changing its privacy policy which will be released on 8th February. This update is all about sharing data to Facebook and your usage stats which you perhaps don’t know or may know. This has caused a lot of concerned. Many people are migrating to a different platform.
What is the New WhatsApp Privacy Policy means?
Facebook gets its 90 per cent income comes from advertisement. In the last some years, Facebook has been funding WhatsApp, and it was a loss deal. They want to do is they want WhatsApp advertising. The company make money by showing relevant ads. For example, you may be browsing for a pizza and things so they collect this data and show you add related to it so the things you searched like pizza, the pizza company will earn from your order and pay Facebook and WhatsApp for advertising.
New WhatsApp Privacy Policy – What’s in it?
They need users permission to show you ads if you are okay you can use the platform if not you won’t be able to use it. And it is fine too in business view. WhatsApp and Facebook says sharing data with Facebook affects only on WhatsApp business users but it does affect all the users using WhatsApp or WhatsApp business.
The advertising might not happen on WhatsApp but on Facebook. But WhatsApp can use some data for showing the advertising but it is not so sure for now.
In 2016 after a couple of years after Facebook-funded WhatsApp. Facebook used the enable button to enable data sharing. There are 2 types of data WhatsApp generate:
- Metadata: your info like who you are interacting with, mobile numbers of both the users in a conversation, how many times you were online, profile picture info about your status updates etc.
- Encrypted data: The data in between chats are encrypted by the end to end encryption. Chats that we exchange are protected and cannot be used in any way. No chats can be leaked as it is encrypted but chats on business may be used. For example, if you book a ticket it may send you details via message maybe this information not be protected and WhatsApp says that information may be shared by Facebook if the business is using Facebook self-hosted services through Facebook.
Is our private Whatsapp conversation safe?
Yes, a hundred per cent. WhatsApp uses special end to end encryption when you send a message on WhatsApp it encrypts it and covers it with encryption and when the receiver receives it only he or she will see the message on his or her phone nothing in between then can see the message not WhatsApp itself. Your private messages are totally safe. And if Facebook has you see your data and information it already has been seeing it from third-party apps like zomato, swiggy, adobe etc. Data like your mobile number location profile pictures etc. can be shared from Facebook and that should not be a big issue as Facebook already have those data either from third-party apps or from itself.
Can share location and mobile number harm you in any way?
Facebook already have all this information because it tracks all the third party apps with whomever you interact and share information like swiggy, adobe. And nobody is sharing sensitive information which shows who you are, but Facebook knows it anyways.
The different policies are used in different ways in a different county so can any country force or bend down on Facebook and WhatsApp to change something of the privacy policy?
In-country like Europe data are not shared as they have a law for this and no data is shared on Facebook. Suppose I am on WhatsApp and not on Facebook but even then Facebook knows you it can track you by third party apps you use same as google so data tracking is done on the drastic level and this need be stopped.
What do we need to protect our data?
Like in apple mobile phones you have the power that this app can see you only when you are in the app not after you close it and Facebook has a bit concern with it and this should be implemented all over India also that Facebook can only see when people are in-app and not after closing it.
What should we be looking for privacy to be more secure?
You can change the permission settings from the app info easily and can manage what data an app needs to see and India needs a privacy protection policy somehow. A strong law against the sharing of data.
For now, the signal is the most secure platform. It has features like you can control who takes the screenshot of your chat, disappearing message etc. are the features you can use to secure private data more efficiently.
Watch the full video here
INFORMATION CREDIT : You tube Video (from YT Channel – BOOM)
