Whatsapp scraps May 15 deadline for accepting much-debated privacy policy

In a key development, Facebook-owned cross-platform messaging app Whatsapp on Friday scrapped its May15 deadline in relation to the privacy policy, and will no longer suspend the accounts of those who refuse to accept the policy, as was claimed earlier. The decision to scrap the deadline came after users slammed the company over concerns that data was being shared with the owner company-Facebook, though no such reason was stated by the company.  

Confirming the same, a spokesperson of the company asserted,"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.” He added,"While a majority of users who have received the new terms of service have accepted them”, some people have not had the chance to do so yet." 

Controversy around privacy policy

 Whatsapp announced its new privacy policy at the beginning of the year. The policy focused on addressing data sharing with its parent company Facebook, especially where business accounts were concerned, but there were no changes to its end-to-end encryption, which is present on all private chats. There was a lot of hue and cry about this, with some users urging the company to take back the policy, and others, just moving to other platforms such as Signal and Telegram, which supposedly were more secure than Whatsapp. 

Whatsapp did not take back the policy but pushed the deadline, which was earlier fixed on February 8 to May 15, 2021. Reasoning the deference, the company back then had promised that in the next three months it will educate users and explain details of the policy, and so it did. It pushed posts, and banners, but to no good, and the backlash continued till it finally took the decision of scrapping the May 15 deadline, and went on to assure the users that the accounts not accepting the policy will not be suspended as was claimed earlier.  

(Credit-PTI)