WhatsApp has revealed how it will gradually cripple accounts of users who do not accept the platform’s upcoming privacy policy changes, which will take effect on May 15.
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WhatsApp’s new banner explaining the changes to the privacy policy
According to an email seen by TechCrunch to one of its trading partners, WhatsApp said it will “slowly ask” users who have not yet accepted the policy changes to comply with the new conditions in the coming weeks, “to have full functionality of WhatsApp from May 15th”.
If they still don’t accept the terms, “these users will be able to receive calls and notifications for a short time, but will not be able to read or send messages from the app,” the company added in the note.
The company confirmed TechCrunch that the note spells out his plan, and that the “short time” will take a few weeks. WhatsApp’s Inactive User Policy states that accounts are “generally deleted after 120 days of inactivity.”
WhatsApp first announced its new terms of use early last month, and the changes at the time were interpreted by many users as the intention that the platform would share their messages with parent company Facebook.
In fact, private messages between users remain encrypted end-to-end so that they can only be accessed by those on the conversation. However, WhatsApp also allows users to send messages to businesses, and the same protections don’t apply to those messages. Data in business messages may be used for commercial purposes, such as ad targeting on Facebook, where some data is stored on Facebook’s servers.
The misconception caused a backlash among users of the Facebook platform, sparking an exodus to rival messaging apps like Telegram and Signal, both of which quickly took advantage of the situation by enticing former users with more mainstream chat features.
WhatsApp has since used in-app status updates to clarify that the update will not affect the sharing of data with Facebook in terms of user chat or profile information, with the new terms applying instead to those using the business chat feature.
In the weeks leading up to May, WhatsApp will begin rolling out a small in-app banner (pictured above) that users can tap to revisit the privacy policy.
Tapping the banner will reveal a more detailed breakdown of the changes, including more information about how WhatsApp works with Facebook. Facebook’s company says it will eventually remind users to read and accept the new policy in order to continue using the app.