Facebook owned WhatsApp has updated its privacy policy and T&Cs with major changes. The new privacy policy and T&Cs says that WhatsApp will share your account information and phone number with Facebook’s systems to show you more relevant ads, offer better friend suggestions and better track other parameters. You might have already noticed this change, if you have updated your WhatsApp to the new version. Read more about here.
Many WhatsApp users are feeling bad with this decision. However, if you do not like to share your account information and your phone number with its parent service Facebook, WhatsApp provides a partial opt-out system for you. However, the opt-out system will be available for 30 days only, so you should act immediately to disable this option.
Read on to know how to stop WhatsApp from sharing your account information and phone number with Facebook system. Note that, this is a partial opt out system and Facebook will still receive your data in some situations.
If you have not accepted the updated privacy policy yet, when WhatsApp prompted to accept, just accept it, then tap on ‘Read’ to expand the full text. You should see a check box at the bottom of the page. Just uncheck it if you do not like to share your information.
If you have updated your WhatsApp and accepted the updated privacy policy, you have 30 days to change your decision.
1. Open WhatsApp, tap on menu (3 vertical dots on top right of the screen) > Settings > Account
2. Uncheck the option ‘Share my account info’ and tap on ‘Don’t share’ to complete the selection.
Remember that this option will be live for 30 days once you accepted the new privacy policy, after which you cannot change your decision.
