In its latest privacy policy that comes into effect next month, WhatsApp Messenger says “you have the right to access, rectify, port, and erase your information, as well as the right to restrict and object to certain processing of your information”. But don’t get too excited. This is from the policy as it applies in Europe, where the General Data Protection Regulations of the European Union has stringent penalties for violation of user privacy. In India, one has no such option. WhatsApp is part of the $750 billion tech giant Facebook, Inc. headquartered in the US.
WhatsApp has now made it mandatory to agree to user data being shared with other group companies (including popular social media platforms Facebook and Instagram) if one is to use the service after February 8. But what everybody seems to be missing is that it was already sharing the data. The biggest difference from the existing policy (effective since July 2020) is that, so far, WhatsApp gave users the choice to op