Comment by lxgr
13 hours ago
What a strange way to think about a telecommunications service. By the same logic, shouldn’t there be a privacy policy for regular old phone lines? Who knows which third parties are between you and the person on the other end!
And speaking about the other end: I have bad news about all the data you share with untrustworthy contacts on WhatsApp…
Quite practically, anyone that enables backups (which WhatsApp heavily nudges people to do) uploads a copy of all your messages and media sent to them to a cloud provider you have no privacy agreement with.
old telephone lines did not disclose info about me with merely my phone number. whataspp discloses name, picture, status
As for your second comment, updated first comment with:
I am not even sure how this is GDPR-compliant if that app is European. They do not have my permission to have my private data, and GDPR does not allow whatAspp to hand it over without my permission either...
Old telephone lines most certainly disclosed additional information about you. Who you contacted, when, how often.
Did you call that drug dealer every Tuesday evening? Looks suspicious. Did that criminal call you the day before he robbed a store not far from your home? Looks suspicious. Do you call Pakistan twice a week? Looks suspicious. Have you ever called a suicide prevention hotline? A bank other than your own? A mosque? An independent political party?
Your POTS phone was always revealing information.
> whataspp discloses name, picture, status
Only to who you choose to make it available to. And if you choose “everybody”, I don’t see how you can reasonably expect this to mean “everybody not using third-party software”?
Because I don't chose everybody? I don't want everyone to see my information, why would I?
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Because until today that IS what it meant! Are you claiming that "pray i do not change the deal further" is a sane approach?
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Old telephones had caller ID. They would send your name and company.
You did have to initiate the call, but you still didn’t have any kind of agreement about it.
Yes, and you used to have to pay for it! Not only was it opt-in, there was a charge.
Several people have scraped every possible phone number from WhatsApp so they know your name, picture, and status if they want it.
So, that doesn't mean we give it away freely because someone was malicious. That makes no sense.
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