WhatsApp is the world’s largest social media chatting platform. The service is owned by Facebook and gathers millions of users on its platform. The App service is constantly updated with new features and this time around the company has released its new update which comes with new and updated terms and policies.
And as far as we have seen the new terms and policies released by WhatsApp are one of the most horrible attacks on our privacy we have ever seen.
This is what the official statement has to say,
“The information we share with the other Facebook Companies includes your account registration information (such as your phone number), transaction data, service-related information, information on how you interact with others (including businesses) when using our Services, mobile device information, your IP address, and may include other information identified in the Privacy Policy section entitled ‘Information We Collect’ or obtained upon notice to you or based on your consent.”
But the information which the company is collecting is nothing but personal. And it is really hard to believe that the company will only use them to improve their user experience. I mean what has my location data, which is mandatory by the way, has got to do anything with me sending him to my parents.
According to the new user policy, here are the user data that is collected automatically by WhatsApp:
- information about messaging, calling, Status, groups (including group name, group picture, group description), payments or business features. profile photo, “about” information, whether you are online, your “last seen”, and when you last updated your “about” information.
- hardware model, operating system information, battery level, signal strength, app version, browser information, mobile network, connection information (including phone number, mobile operator or ISP), language and time zone, IP address, device operations information, and identifiers.
- Even if the user doesn’t use WhatsApp location-related features, the company can use IP addresses and other information like phone number area codes to estimate the user’s general location (are you kidding me!!).
- Now all these are the information which the company collects the information without our permission, and don’t even get me started with the information that the company collects by taking our permission. And one important piece of information is that users will not be able to use WhatsApp without accepting the new terms and conditions. It’s an open robbery of user data.
isn’t Google doing the same thing for such a long time now?