Will WhatsApp share personal data with Facebook?

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Many of you asked us and, as always, we decided to wait a few days before talking about it. What are we talking about in the meantime? Lately Whatsapp has updated its terms and conditions and, as always happens, it is mandatory to accept them otherwise you cannot use the application.
You already accepted them when you signed up to Whatsapp and scrolled through incomprehensible sentences by clicking on “Accept everything and don't bother me“. However, perhaps something has changed because a new notice has arrived that is not entirely clear and many have asked themselves: Will WhatsApp share personal data with Facebook?

We have collected some opinions from various experts and have come to the conclusion that yes it will, but only outside Europe. In Europe we are in fact protected by much stricter privacy laws which often put a spoke in the wheels of Big Tech.

Outside Europe, however, it will be mandatory to give away a lot of personal information which will then be exploited by Facebook to improve its services. As often happens, safety is then brought into play: we monitor you better but we only do it for your good ¹. Second Privacy International it is likely that Facebook I just want your phone number (if you don't already have it) and a list of all your contacts ². We also advise you to read the Privacy International article on the matter: Facebook Must Explain What it's Doing With Your Phone Number.

Will WhatsApp share personal data with Facebook? In Italy it seems not

In Italy, however, not much should change. According to the news agency AGI who contacted the company: “There will be no changes to data sharing with Facebook regarding non-business chats and account information, and for business messaging, we are not requiring users to share data” ³.

Facebook also reached out Wired to tell him the same thing ⁴.

Finally also second Very active nothing will change for Italy ⁵.

With Signal there is no uncertainty

As always, however, there is a lot of confusion regarding what and how much will be tracked and shared. In this specific case, however, not much should change compared to before, at least in Europe. However, you could take the opportunity to eliminate the serve and try one of the many alternatives to Whatsapp For example Signal or Threema. If you then decide to use Telegram then we are waiting for you on our channel It is on our group!

For what concerns Signal we recommend the article by Wired to create groups on Signal: Here's how to move group chats from WhatsApp to Signal.

If when you read the message on your Whatsapp you thought: “I don't have Facebook anyway” know that Facebook it's a sprawling company and has the ability to track and track you even if you are not registered on their social network.

And meanwhile, in the rest of the world, Signal is having a boom in downloads. Here you can read a LOVES (TOsk MAnd TOanything) on Reddit done precisely in these hours to answer the many questions of curious new users.

Want to know a little more about Facebook? Here are some of our articles about it:

• DuckDuckGo Trackers Radar, guess who filled the web with tracers?
• What do big companies know about us? An infographic to find out!
• Facebook follows you everywhere
• Without Facebook, a lot of apps break
• What does Facebook do with Giphy?
• Facebook, Instagram and censorship
• Facebook accuses Apple of protecting privacy too much ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
• Privacy Redirect And UntrackMe to use alternative front ends

1. Improved infrastructure and delivery, for protection, security and integrity on Wired[↩]
2. Privacy International on Twitter[↩]
3. What WhatsApp is asking of its users[↩]
4. What the WhatsApp privacy update means[↩]
5. WhatsApp will share users' personal data with Facebook: take it or leave it. But only outside Europe[↩]

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