WhatsApp Cancels May 15 Deadline To Accept Privacy Policy, Won't Delete Your Account

WhatsApp has finally gone ahead and announced that it is scrapping the May 15 deadline for accepting its new privacy policy.

PA

Moreover, WhatsApp has also assured its users that in case they haven¡¯t accepted the policy, their account would no longer be deleted. This would be music to the ears of all WhatsApp users in India, well at least what¡¯s remaining of them anyway.

Also Read: Indian Antitrust Body Investigating WhatsApp For Its Privacy Policy Change

WhatsApp spokesperson in a statement to PTI has stated, ¡°No accounts will be deleted on May 15 because of this update and no one in India will lose functionality of WhatsApp either. We will follow up with reminders to people over the next several weeks.¡±

The company however hasn¡¯t really revealed why it decided to scrap this deadline in the first palace and how long do these users have till they¡¯ll be forced to accept these policies. Moreover, it is important to note that it only mentions India in the statement, meaning functionality could still be limited for users outside India.

WhatsApp's privacy policy

In case you don¡¯t remember or you¡¯ve missed out, WhatsApp had announced a new set of terms and conditions which at the time made its users believe that it would now share user data with its parent company Facebook.

WhatsApp

This resulted in a massive backlash among users, with many jumping the ship and switching to other, more secure alternatives such as Signal, Telegram and others.

The damage control

However, soon after WhatsApp explained what it meant with the new privacy policy change in an FAQ on its site stating, ¡°We want to be clear that the policy update does not affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family in any way. Instead, this update includes changes related to messaging a business on WhatsApp, which is optional, and provides further transparency about how we collect and use data.¡±

Also Read: WhatsApp Says Privacy Policy Update Doesn¡¯t Affect Privacy Of Your Messages

WhatsApp also assured its users that there was no way the personal data on chats and groups would be shared with Facebook. Moreover, it also revealed that doesn¡¯t keep logs of people who text or call each other. It does not share contacts on your smartphone with Facebook. Neither can it share location data with Facebook.

Reuters

Also Read: WhatsApp Won't Let You Send Or Receive Messages From May 15 Onwards, If You Don't Click Accept

Curbing of WhatsApp's features

With this announcement, it pushed the date for accepting the privacy policy to May 15. Earlier FAQs had highlighted that failure to accept these policies would result in WhatsApp limiting messaging features and eventually result in deletion of the account entirely.

Do you still use WhatsApp? If yes, did you accept the privacy policy? Tell us in the comments below.