What are the data's WhatsApp collects and shares with Facebook ?
Your Account Information. You must provide your mobile phone number and basic information (including a profile name of your choice) to create a WhatsApp account. If you don’t provide them with this information, you will not be able to create an account to use our Services. You can add other information to your account, such as a profile picture and "about" information.
Your Messages.
They do not retain your messages in the ordinary course of providing our Services to you. Instead, your messages are stored on your device and not typically stored on our servers. Once your messages are delivered, they are deleted from our servers. The following scenarios describe circumstances where they may store your messages in the course of delivering them:
Undelivered Messages. If a message cannot be delivered immediately (for example, if the recipient is offline), they keep it in encrypted form on their servers for up to 30 days as they try to deliver it. If a message is still undelivered after 30 days, they delete it.
Media Forwarding. When a user forwards media within a message, they store that media temporarily in encrypted form on their servers to aid in more efficient delivery of additional forwards.
WhatsApp offer end-to-end encryption for their Services. End-to-end encryption means that your messages are encrypted to protect against them and third parties from reading them. Learn more about end-to-end encryption and how businesses communicate with you on WhatsApp.
Your Connections. You can use the contact upload feature and provide them, if permitted by applicable laws, with the phone numbers in your address book on a regular basis, including those of users of our Services and your other contacts. If any of your contacts aren’t yet using their Services, they will manage this information for you in a way that ensures those contacts cannot be identified by them. Learn more about their contact upload feature here. You can create, join, or get added to groups and broadcast lists, and such groups and lists get associated with your account information. You give your groups a name. You can provide a group profile picture or description.
Status Information. You may provide them your status if you choose to include one on your account.
Transactions And Payments Data. If you use WhatsApp's payments services, or use Their Services meant for purchases or other financial transactions, They process additional information about you, including payment account and transaction information. Payment account and transaction information includes information needed to complete the transaction (for example, information about your payment method, shipping details and transaction amount). If you use WhatsApp's payments services available in your country or territory, Their privacy practices are described in the applicable payments privacy policy.
Customer Support And Other Communications. When you contact them for customer support or otherwise communicate with them, you may provide them with information related to your use of their Services, including copies of your messages, any other information you deem helpful, and how to contact you (e.g., an email address). For example, you may send them an email with information relating to app performance or other issues.
What Are The Information That Are Automatically Collected By WhatsApp ?
Usage And Log Information. They collect information about your activity on their Services, like service-related, diagnostic, and performance information. This includes information about your activity (including how you use their Services, your Services settings, how you interact with others using their Services (including when you interact with a business), and the time, frequency, and duration of your activities and interactions), log files, and diagnostic, crash, website, and performance logs and reports. This also includes information about when you registered to use their Services; the features you use like their messaging, calling, Status, groups (including group name, group picture, group description), payments or business features; profile photo, "about" information; whether you are online, when you last used their Services (your "last seen"); and when you last updated your "about" information.
Device And Connection Information. They collect device and connection-specific information when you install, access, or use their Services. This includes information such as 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 (including identifiers unique to Facebook Company Products associated with the same device or account).
Location Information. They collect and use precise location information from your device with your permission when you choose to use location-related features, like when you decide to share your location with your contacts or view locations nearby or locations others have shared with you. There are certain settings relating to location-related information which you can find in your device settings or the in-app settings, such as location sharing. Even if you do not use their location-related features, they use IP addresses and other information like phone number area codes to estimate your general location (e.g., city and country). They also use your location information for diagnostics and troubleshooting purposes.
Cookies. They use cookies to operate and provide their Services, including to provide their Services that are web-based, improve your experiences, understand how their Services are being used, and customize them. For example, They use cookies to provide their Services for web and desktop and other web-based services. They may also use cookies to understand which of their Help Center articles are most popular and to show you relevant content related to their Services. Additionally, They may use cookies to remember your choices, like your language preferences, to provide a safer experience, and otherwise to customize their Services for you. Learn more about how they use cookies to provide you their Services.
What Are The Third-Party Information's Collected By WhatsApp ?
Information Others Provide About You. WhatsApp receive information about you from other users. For example, when other users you know use our Services, they may provide your phone number, name, and other information (like information from their mobile address book) just as you may provide theirs. They may also send you messages, send messages to groups to which you belong, or call you. They require each of these users to have lawful rights to collect, use, and share your information before providing any information to them.
You should keep in mind that in general any user can capture screenshots of your chats or messages or make recordings of your calls with them and send them to WhatsApp or anyone else, or post them on another platform.User Reports. Just as you can report other users, other users or third parties may also choose to report to us your interactions and your messages with them or others on our Services; for example, to report possible violations of our Terms or policies. When a report is made, they collect information on both the reporting user and reported user. To find out more about what happens when a user report is made, please see Advanced Safety and Security Features.
Businesses On WhatsApp. Businesses you interact with using our Services may provide us with information about their interactions with you. They require each of these businesses to act in accordance with applicable law when providing any information to them.
When you message with a business on WhatsApp, keep in mind that the content you share may be visible to several people in that business. In addition, some businesses might be working with third-party service providers (which may include Facebook) to help manage their communications with their customers. For example, a business may give such third-party service provider access to its communications to send, store, read, manage, or otherwise process them for the business. To understand how a business processes your information, including how it might share your information with third parties or Facebook, you should review that business’ privacy policy or contact the business directly.Third-Party Service Providers. They work with third-party service providers and other Facebook Companies to help them operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services. For example, They work with them to distribute our apps; provide our technical and physical infrastructure, delivery, and other systems; provide engineering support, cybersecurity support, and operational support; supply location, map, and places information; process payments; help them to understand how people use our Services; market our Services; help you connect with businesses using our Services; conduct surveys and research for them; ensure safety, security and integrity; and help with customer service. These companies may provide them with information about you in certain circumstances; for example, app stores may provide them with reports to help them to diagnose and fix their service issues.
The “How They Work With Other Facebook Companies” section below provides more information about how WhatsApp collects and shares information with the other Facebook Companies.Third-Party Services. They allow you to use our Services in connection with third-party services and Facebook Company Products. If you use our Services with such third-party services or Facebook Company Products, they may receive information about you from them; for example, if you use the WhatsApp share button on a news service to share a news article with your WhatsApp contacts, groups, or broadcast lists on our Services, or if you choose to access our Services through a mobile carrier’s or device provider’s promotion of our Services. Please note that when you use third-party services or Facebook Company Products, their own terms and privacy policies will govern your use of those services and products.
How WhatsApp Uses Your Information ?
WhatsApp use information they have (subject to choices you make and applicable law) to operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services. Here's how:
Their Services. They use information they have to operate and provide their Services, including providing customer support; completing purchases or transactions; improving, fixing, and customizing our Services; and connecting our Services with Facebook Company Products that you may use. They also use information they have to understand how people use their Services; evaluate and improve our Services; research, develop, and test new services and features; and conduct troubleshooting activities. We also use your information to respond to you when you contact us.
Safety, Security, And Integrity. Safety, security and integrity are an integral part of our Services. We use information they have to verify accounts and activity; combat harmful conduct; protect users against bad experiences and spam; and promote safety, security and integrity on and off our Services, such as by investigating suspicious activity or violations of our Terms and policies, and to ensure our Services are being used legally. Please see the Law, Our Rights and Protection section below for more information.
Communications About Their Services And The Facebook Companies. They use information they have to communicate with you about our Services and let you know about our terms, policies, and other important updates. They may provide you marketing for our Services and those of the Facebook Companies.
No Third-Party Banner Ads. They still do not allow third-party banner ads on our Services. They have no intention to introduce them, but if they ever do, they will update their Privacy Policy.
Business Interactions. They enable you and third parties, like businesses, to communicate and interact with each other using our services, such as Catalogs for businesses on WhatsApp through which you can browse products and services and place orders. Businesses may send you transaction, appointment, and shipping notifications; product and service updates; and marketing. For example, you may receive flight status information for upcoming travel, a receipt for something you purchased, or a notification when a delivery will be made. Messages you receive from a business could include an offer for something that might interest you. They do not want you to have a spammy experience; as with all of your messages, you can manage these communications, and they will honor the choices you make.
Why you should accept WhatsApp privacy policy ?
If you have been using WhatsApp for over many years you should be aware that the messaging platform updates its policies frequently. What’s new in the latest policy is that this is for the very first time that WhatsApp is openly providing details around user data collection and storage. Users have time till February 8, 2021 to accept the new policy otherwise you can lose your WhatsApp account.
