WhatsApp and Instagram are both owned by Facebook and like it or not Facebook is going to start collecting more information from WhatsApp users, starting in February. Starting earlier this week and yesterday for Europe based countries, WhatsApp has been notifying users that the privacy policy for WhatsApp is going to change, you can opt in or opt out. Opting out will mean your WhatsApp account will be deleted on the 8th February 2021.

The new policy will allow Facebook to gain even more information from users who use WhatsApp. Data shared with Facebook include: WhatsApp account registration and phone number, transaction data, service-related information, interaction information, mobile device information, IP address, and “other information identified… or obtained upon notice to you or based on your consent.” This will be an issue even if you don’t have a Facebook account.

The message below has been popping up on users phones around the globe, at this current time the service has around 2 billion users.

The current issue with WhatsApp is being discussed at great lengths on Twitter, with over 400k Tweets mentioning the service. The general consensus on Twitter is that it is time to move off of WhatsApp with much more “pro-privacy” platforms being discussed, such as iMessage, Telegram and Signal.

What do I do?

It is totally up to you, you can stick with WhatsApp and be tracked online or delete Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp and use a much more private service such as Message, Telegram and Signal. Privacy is becoming a larger and larger issue and thanks to companies like Apple, those companies which abuse users privacy are now finally seeing the result of their actions.