WhatsApp to move ahead with controversial “take it or leave it” privacy policy update despite India’s strong stand against it

WhatsApp said on Thursday that it would ‘eventually’ start reminding people to review and accept its controversial new privacy policy update despite India’s strong stand against it. The updated terms and conditions, currently on hold, will allow WhatsApp to share some user data with parent firm Facebook though it has clarified on multiple occasions that, it “does not affect the privacy of your messages with your friends and family in any way.” The privacy policy update will go into effect on May 15.

The instant messaging platform has been working to clear confusion and ‘misinformation’ around the said update through full-page newspaper ads and WhatsApp status updates. In the coming weeks, WhatsApp will, in addition, start to display a banner within the app “providing more information that people can read at their own pace,” it said.

WhatsApp clears the air

At the same time, the Facebook-owned company reiterated on how its service continued to remain free for all users and how only those who chose to do business on the platform were charged — that is how WhatsApp makes money. Only and only those individuals who choose to engage with these businesses would be at the centre of the incoming change(s), WhatsApp said, while individual chats would continue to remain private — like always.

While there are deep concerns about privacy, among both privacy advocates and users alike, the bigger concern is WhatsApp not giving an option to opt out (at least at this point of time). The ‘take it or leave it’ nature of the update has raised many eyebrows, and at the same time, it has led many to think about the repercussions going forward. With Facebook embroiled in a string of data leaks in the past, many WhatsApp users are wary of this ‘mandatory’ sharing of data despite its tall privacy claims. Same reason why more and more people have been flocking to rival chat apps like Telegram and Signal in the last few weeks. You can read more about this here.

Taking an indirect dig at Telegram at least, WhatsApp said it was okay for people to ‘check out’ other apps to see what they had to offer but ‘competitors’ couldn’t get away saying they couldn’t see people’s messages when they themselves didn’t offer end-to-end encryption by default. “We believe people are looking for apps to be both reliable and safe, even if that requires WhatsApp having some limited data,” it said.

India has categorically told WhatsApp that the platform cannot unilaterally put in such a policy in its biggest market and that WhatsApp was obliged to respect the privacy of its largest user base. Meanwhile, the updated privacy policy does not apply to the European market because of EU’s stern privacy guidelines that WhatsApp is forced to comply with — India has taken a note of this. It would be interesting to see how things pan out for WhatsApp in the days to come, especially in India.