If you’re a WhatsApp user, you may have noticed that their privacy Terms and Conditions have changed?

These are the basic facts you need to know and how to opt-out if you wish to do so —

In 2014 Facebook bought out WhatsApp, and at this time their CEO ensured that their original business model of an ad-free messaging service would stay in place. Two years later this plan has seemed to change as WhatsApp now plan to share their user data with Facebook for this purpose.

Facebook’s business model is solely built around monetizing usage via interest-based advertising fed by mining the personal data of its users.

The user data WhatsApp is sharing with Facebook is described as so they can track basic metrics, better fight SPAM and produce relevant ads. Specifically, the data being shared is the phone number used to validate your account and information about the last time you used WhatsApp. As Facebook does not require a phone number to validate a new account, some are saying this is also an opportunity for them to fill in personal information they are missing.

This data also may not be shared with strictly Facebook either as the Facebook family extends to products and companies such as the Virtual Reality product Oculus Rift and photo sharing app Instagram.

There are ways to opt-out to some of the data sharing, specifically for Facebook ad targeting and product-related purposes. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a way to fully opt-out, other than to stop using the app.

To partially opt-out, you will need to click the box at the bottom of the Terms and Conditions page which will come up as soon as you open WhatsApp if you haven’t already done this. Once the full page opens, scroll to the bottom and uncheck the box pertaining to sharing your information with Facebook, and click “Agree”.

If you have already accepted the new Terms and Conditions and wish to uncheck the box — WhatsApp is offering a 30-day window to make this change. You will need to do this via Settings>Account>Share my account info, where you will see an option to uncheck the box.

Also, ensure you have updated WhatsApp to its most recent version as this will ensure end-to-end encryption. As long as the person you are messaging also has this version of WhatsApp, then you are the only two people who will have access to your messages.

If you have any further questions regarding online privacy, digital services and information, please be in touch with us at — [email protected]