Facebook-owned messaging giant WhatsApp said its new privacy update will not impact how people communicate privately with their friends and family wherever they are in the world but make it easier for people to make purchases and get help from businesses on the messaging platform.
“While most people use WhatsApp to chat with friends and family, increasingly people are reaching out to businesses as well. We updated the privacy policy to describe that, going forward, businesses can choose to receive secure hosting services from our parent company Facebook to help manage their communications with their customers on WhatsApp,” the spokesperson said.
“The update does not change WhatsApp’s data-sharing practices with Facebook and WhatsApp remains deeply committed to protecting people’s privacy,” the spokesperson added.
However, privacy experts said that the updated terms of service and privacy policy give more insight into how the messaging platform will use user data and, more importantly, share it with its parent company Facebook going forward. Users have till February 8, 2021, to accept these in order to continue using the platform.
There is nothing new in WhatsApp updating its terms of service and privacy policy as most software services do update their services occasionally as it is a standard practice that in order to continue using these services, the user accepts the new conditions and policy.