WhatsApp has a clearer privacy policy for European users as of today. Although the terms and conditions have not changed, the information collected and what is done with it is discussed in more detail.
With this, Meta (formerly Facebook) as the parent company behind WhatsApp meets the Irish Data Protection Commission, which previously imposed a large fine of 225 million euros because the privacy conditions were not clear enough. WhatsApp would not comply with the GDPR privacy law. By the way, Meta disagrees. The fine is being challenged.
The text had to get an update anyway, because Facebook recently changed its name to Meta. In the old terms and conditions the name Facebook was mentioned about 40 times, in the new text only once. That does not mean that information is no longer exchanged with Facebook, there is now only talk about ‘Products of Meta companies’, which Facebook falls under.
Neatly presented
The more extensive conditions count about 4000 words extra compared to the previous policy. This is to provide more information about which data is collected and for what purpose. This is now presented much more clearly in tables entitled ‘Why and how we process your data’, which was less evident in the old policy.
Because the content of the privacy policy has not been adjusted, users do not have to accept the terms again.
