Does WhatsApp’s New Privacy Policy Spell the End for Your Privacy?

On this episode of Orbital, we discuss WhatsApp’s new privacy policy and what it means for your data. Tech lawyer and legal director of SFLC.in (Software Freedom Law Center) Mishi Choudhary joins host Pranay Parab to talk about this. We begin this episode by discussing what the change in WhatsApp’s privacy policy means for you. WhatsApp’s been sharing data with Facebook for a long time, but what has changed now? Also, how is WhatsApp’s earlier data sharing agreement with Facebook different from what it’s offering now? Mishi answers all of these questions in detail.

Then we talk about why you should be really wary of WhatsApp’s privacy policy changes. We mention why you should worry about ad companies collecting huge volumes of information about your daily lives and tell you what you can do to avoid it. Next, we discuss whether this recent outrage over WhatsApp’s privacy policy will translate into a mass exodus or a return to status quo in a few days. This is where we suggest excellent alternatives to WhatsApp, which includes Signal — one of the best privacy focused messaging apps in the world right now. Finally, we talk about what steps you can take to make sure that you don’t get stuck on platforms that are bad for your privacy, and why this is very important.

That’s all for this week’s episode of Orbital, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.