I've been seeing a lot of people talking about deleting WhatsApp or switching platforms to either Telegram or Signal due to WhatsApp's new privacy update, but I wanted to shed a little light on that.

WhatsApp isn't sharing any more of your general data with Facebook than it already did. By general data I mean; diagnostic data, phone numbers, contacts, profile names and pictures and so on.

What this privacy update means is it's now using your data and engagement with it's platform to allow business services to communicate and sell directly to you.

Your conversations/chats are still encrypted which means Facebook or anyone for that matter, can't access them (for now at least), so your privacy is still very much protected in that regard. However, as a WhatsApp user you're now becoming a potential Facebook customer.

Ultimately, this update shouldn't really be any cause for panic. WhatsApp might become as annoying as IG now because it's looking to better monetize it's users but it's still one of the largest end-to-end encrypted platforms out there (i.e your nudes are safe)

As a side note, this privacy update doesn't affect users in the EU (yes UK including you regardless of Brexit). The data protection law (GDPR and the DPA 2018) didn't allow for Whatsapp to share user data with Facebook for ad/product improvement any way, so we're good.

For the rest of the world...

If businesses communicate with you directly, and the businesses are hosted by Facebook, these conversations could be stored and managed by Facebook and may be shared with the company more generally. I suppose this is where your privacy comes to it's limits.

In the case that this happens - where a Whatsapp user is communicating with a business that's being managed by Facebook, users still have the right to be informed and as far I know, will be informed.

Remain privacy-conscious though kids! Every time there's a change in the privacy and data terms for any of the apps you use, READ THEM (or get someone like me to do it). Facebook is still a massive data harvester so that uneasy feeling in your gut is very much valid.

On another note, wouldn't it be fun if we all switched to an alternative messenger and left our aunties on WhatsApp with their cancer-in-an-orange broadcasts? *sigh* One can only dream.