Concerned about WhatsApp and Facebook’s data pooling? So is the ICO

This is the reason why today we will try to give you some information about how you can stop WhatsApp from handing Facebook this new data. To work in line with this guidance, WhatsApp has detailed an “opt in/out box” at the bottom of the screen next to an option to share WhatsApp account information, “to improve my Facebook ads and product experiences”.

Facebook has also pledged to not interfere with a promise by the co-founders of WhatsApp to respects the privacy of owners and to keep their ads off the messaging platform.

In one fell swoop, Facebook has essentially added over one billion phone numbers into its user database. “The updated documents also reflect that we’ve joined Facebook”, The application stated in a blog post.

As part of this plan, WhatsApp said it would begin sharing user information – including phone numbers – with the “Facebook family of companies”, but would not make data public or share it with advertisers.

“But by coordinating more with Facebook, we’ll be able to do things like track basic metrics about how often people use our services and better fight spam on WhatsApp”. WhatsApp gives several examples: prevent a flight delay, delivery of a purchase or a bank fraud.

Users concerned about these changes and the impact they may have on their data have 30 days to opt out from agreeing to the changes.

For users who want to leave WhatsApp altogether, alternative services such as Signal and Telegram could be considered.

“There’s always an issue when a service changes its terms, especially one which plays in the mobile space since it’s harder to push terms and harder to read them when on the move”, he said. “None of that data has ever been collected and stored by WhatsApp, and we really have no plans to change that”.

The changes WhatsApp and Facebook are making will affect a lot of people. Organizations do not need to get prior approval from the ICO to change their approaches, but they do need to stay within data protection laws.