WhatsApp delays privacy changes amid outrage over 'personal data grab'

Facebook has delayed controversial plans to share more of WhatsApp users' information with Mark Zuckerberg's other businesses after being accused of launching a "personal data grab".

The social media giant, which also owns Instagram, sparked outcry this month when it pushed a new "take it or leave it" privacy policy in front of WhatsApp's users, prompting millions to jump ship to rival messaging apps.

But on Friday WhatsApp said it would push back the deadline for users to accept the changes from February 8 to May 15 so as give itself more time to "clear up misinformation" and "confusion", hitting out at "rumours" spreading online.

Privacy groups had criticised WhatsApp's all-or-nothing ultimatum, which stated that messages between WhatsApp users and companies can be stored with Facebook and used to inform adverts on its other social networks. Messages between individual users will remain private.

WhatsApp has vowed that there will be no change for UK and EU users outside business messaging, even though they must still agree to the terms. However, Italian regulators have said it is not clear exactly how EU users’ data will be used.

WhatsApp said: "We’ve heard from so many people how much confusion there is around our recent update. There's been a lot of misinformation causing concern and we want to help everyone understand our principles and the facts.

"We will always protect your personal conversations with end-to-end encryption, so that neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can see these private messages. We don’t keep logs of who everyone’s messaging or calling... and we don’t share your contacts with Facebook.

"With these updates, none of that is changing. Instead, the update includes new options people will have to message a business on WhatsApp, and provides further transparency about how we collect and use [that] data...

"No one will have their account suspended or deleted on February 8."

The changes, which are part of Facebook's plan to make WhatsApp a lucrative hub for online shopping and customer service, have provoked anger from many users, including Scottish pop star KT Tunstall.

Many have quit the app to join rival services such as Telegram and Signal, a strongly encrypted app created by WhatsApp founder Brian Acton after he left the company due to reported disputes with Mr Zuckerberg. It widely considered to be one of the most secure chat services available.

Analysts Sensor Tower said downloads of Signal have exploded from just under 300,000 the week before the WhatsApp changes were announced on January 4, to over 17 million in the week after. In the same period, WhatsApp downloads fell by 14pc, from 11 million to just under 10 million.

Eva Blum-Dumontet, a senior researcher at Privacy International, said: “Many people are rightfully concerned about the ‘accept the data grab or lose your account’ nature of WhatsApp latest policy.

“This is clearly not how consent should be done under GDPR, and people should be entitled to carry on using WhatsApp while refusing the sharing of their data with Facebook.”

Part of the controversy has come from the difference between WhatsApp's privacy policy in the EU versus the rest of the world, where Facebook has already had access to users' phone numbers and unique identifiers since 2016.

Outside the EU, about 175m people use WhatsApp to message a business every day. Reportedly, said businesses can then use those people's personal data to target them specifically with adverts on Facebook or Instagram.

Earlier this week, WhatsApp attempted to tamp down users’ ire by releasing a statement saying that no data from people’s messages with other users, bar messages with companies, would be shared with Facebook.

A spokesman for the company said: “We want to be clear that the policy update does not affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family in any way.”