Not long ago, WhatsApp announced in a blog post that it would start sharing phone numbers and analytics data of its users with its parent company, Facebook.
It’s the first time in four years that the company’s privacy policy has been updated. According to a blog post, the changes are a result of WhatsApp’s desire to allow businesses to communicate directly with its more than 1 billion users. The app said the coordination with Facebook will allow it to do things like track key metrics about how often people use its services and better combat spam. WhatsApp said it won’t publish or share WhatsApp numbers with anyone, including advertisers. Specifically, the company wrote: “By connecting your phone number with Facebook’s systems, Facebook can offer better friend suggestions and show you more relevant ads if you have an account with them.” The company also shared that it has rolled out several new features, such as end-to-end encryption and WhatsApp Calling, along with various other messaging tools like WhatsApp for web and desktop. Although privacy policies have been relaxed, WhatsApp has assured its users that thanks to the new end-to-end encryption, private messages will remain private.
The latest version of WhatsApp will encrypt user messages by default, meaning no one other than the people in the conversation will be able to read them! You can read the full updated WhatsApp docs by clicking here.
