Well, that day has come when your most personal data including phone numbers on WhatsApp will be shared with its big mammoth owner – Facebook.
WhatsApp has updated its privacy policy for the first time after it’s been acquired by the social giant Facebook. Under the new privacy policy messed up in the legal terms, there is one very important update – WhatsApp will now start sharing your information with Facebook.
The two companies say the new policy will help you to find new friends by improving the friend’s suggestion feature on Facebook. In addition, it will improve the quality of Facebook ads and overall products experiences. For business, they will get a wider reach for their ads by more user targeting options.
For WhatsApp sharing your information with Facebook will improve its spam fighting capabilities and allow it to improve tracking of basic usage metrics.
“Even as we coordinate more with Facebook in the months ahead, your encrypted messages stay private and no one else can read them. Not WhatsApp, not Facebook, nor anyone else. We won’t post or share your WhatsApp number with others, including on Facebook, and we still won’t sell, share, or give your phone number to advertisers.” said WhatsApp on its official blog.
How to Opt out of WhatsApp sharing your details with Facebook
Well, there is a simple way to opt out of this new WhatsApp policy change. For existing and new users will receive a notification about the updated terms and policies. Instead of plainly agreeing on it, you need to click on the “read more” option. Then down in the bottom uncheck the box that reads “Share my WhatsApp account information with Facebook to improve my Facebook ads and product experiences…”. Now hit the agree button and you have successfully opted out.
In case, you already accepted the new policy, then you have a 30 days window to opt out. For that, you just need to go to WhatsApp settings and choose the account option. There uncheck the box reading “Share my account info”. Done you have opted out from WhatsApp sharing your information with Facebook.