WhatsApp Dismisses Concerns Around New Privacy Policy, Says Messages are Still End-to-End Encrypted

WhatsApp, through an official blog post, has dismissed all concerns regarding the new privacy policy and has called them “rumours”. The popular free messaging platform has reiterated that all messages on the platform are still end-to-end encrypted, and no third party including Facebook or WhatsApp can access personal messages. WhatsApp recently updates its privacy policy, and made it mandatory for users to accept the terms and conditions, which led to widespread criticism of the Facebook-owned platform on social media.

“We want to address some rumors and be 100% clear we continue to protect your private messages with end-to-end encryption. Our privacy policy update does not affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family,” clarified the company through a tweet. The platform also added that users may be sure of the following few pointers:

• WhatsApp or Facebook has no access to private messages or calls.
• The platform does not keep logs of messages or calls of users.
• The location shared by users cannot be seen by WhatsApp or Facebook.
• The platform does share user contacts with Facebook.
• WhatsApp groups are private, and are not available on public platforms.
• Messages can still be set to disappear.
• Users can download their data.

“We want to be clear that the policy update does not affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family in any way. Instead, this update includes changes related to messaging a business on WhatsApp, which is optional, and provides further transparency about how we collect and use data,” added the platform in the official blog.

The company maintains that the new privacy policy pertains to businesses, and has nothing to do with personal messages. “Messaging with businesses is different than messaging with your family or friends. Some large businesses need to use hosting services to manage their communication. Which is why we’re giving businesses the option to use secure hosting services from Facebook to manage WhatsApp chats with their customers, answer questions, and send helpful information like purchase receipts,” said the company.