WhatsApp has revealed how it will gradually paralyze accounts owned by users who do not accept the platform’s impending privacy changes, which will take effect on May 15.
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WhatsApp’s new banner explaining privacy policy changes
According to an email seen by TechCrunch to one of its trading partners, WhatsApp said that 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 the full functionality of WhatsApp” from 15 May.
If they still do not 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 has confirmed TechCrunch that the note accurately characterizes the plan, and that the ‘short time’ will extend over a few weeks. WhatsApp’s inactive user policy states that accounts ‘are usually 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 to mean that the platform would share their messages with parent company Facebook.
In fact, private messages between users will remain end-to-end encrypted so that only those in the conversation have access to them. However, WhatsApp also allows users to send messages to businesses, and the same protection does not apply to the messages. Data in business messages can be used for commercial purposes, such as ad targeting on Facebook, with some data stored on the Facebook servers.
The misperception caused a setback among users of the platform owned by Facebook, which led to an outbreak with competing messaging programs such as Telegram and Signal, both of which could quickly take advantage of the situation by luring former users with more common chat features.
WhatsApp has since used status updates in the app to explain that the update does not affect the sharing of data with Facebook in terms of user chats or profile information, but rather the new terms apply to those who use the business chat feature.
In the weeks leading up to May, WhatsApp will begin rolling out a small, in-app banner (pictured above) for users to tap to review the privacy policy.
When you tap on the banner, a more detailed summary of the changes is displayed, including further details on how WhatsApp works with Facebook. The company owned by Facebook will eventually remind users to read the new policy and accept it to continue the application.