WhatsApp had announced its updated Privacy Policy in January, for which it had to face quite some heat from its users all around the world. The users were given a May 15 deadline to accept the updated privacy policy. However, according to a new report, Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp has now extended the deadline to June 19, 2021, for its users in select regions. It should be noted that even though WhatsApp had introduced the May 15 deadline earlier, it did not disable the accounts of users who did not accept their privacy policy. Even after WhatsApp has claimed that they will not disable accounts of users not accepting their privacy policy, they are still setting up new deadlines for users of select regions.
Updated Terms Comply With New European Union Data Protection Laws
WhatsApp update tracker WABetaInfo reported that users in countries like Germany and Argentina had received the new deadline of June 19 to accepted the company’s updated terms of service. The pop-up message displayed shows the new deadline date and also states that the updated privacy policy and terms of service are in compliance with the new European Union data protection laws. Users will need to accept the new policy by June 19 in order to continue using WhatsApp. A user can choose to ignore the pop-up message for now, but if they do not accept the updated policy by the given deadline, they will not be able to use the app with full functionality.
Majority Users Have Accepted the New Privacy Policy: WhatsApp
Originally, WhatsApp had asked its users to accept the new policy by February 8. It instantly started to face criticism from its users as they believed that WhatsApp would share their personal information with its parent company Facebook. The deadline was then extended to May 15 after the backlash. WhatsApp has claimed that the majority of its users have accepted the new policy; they acknowledge that some users might not have had the chance to accept the policy yet. They also claimed that no accounts had been deleted till May 15 because of the policy, and no user in India has lost functionality to the app.
WhatsApp Maintains Its Stand on Its Updated Policy
WhatsApp has also said they will continue to send reminders to users that have still not accepted the policy. They continue to maintain their stand on their updated policy, promising that things like data relating to chats and calls will still remain safe, secured and end-to-end encrypted. According to the messaging platform, the new policy is centred around Business on WhatsApp. Contact information of users will not be shared with Facebook.
Even after explaining their stands on their new terms of service, WhatsApp was directed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to withdraw its new policy in a letter recently sent by the agency.
