Data Collection and Sharing with Meta

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Encrypted Backups: News from 2024-2025 continues to highlight the option for users to enable end-to-end encrypted backups of their chat history to cloud services like Google Drive or iCloud, adding a layer of security to data at rest.
- The Ongoing Controversy:

Metadata Collection: Even with E2EE for content, WhatsApp collects significant metadata (data about data). This includes:
Account Information: Your phone number, profile name/photo, "About" info.
Usage Information: How often you use uae whatsapp number data the app, features you interact with (messaging, calling, Status, groups), when you are online, timestamps.
Device & Connection Info: Hardware model, OS, battery level, signal strength, app version, mobile network, IP address (for general location).
Contacts: Accesses phone numbers from your address book to identify WhatsApp users.
Sharing with Meta (Parent Company): This is the most contentious and consistently reported data news for WhatsApp. While direct message content is encrypted, WhatsApp's privacy policy allows sharing of non-encrypted metadata and usage data with other Meta companies (Facebook, Instagram, etc.).
Regulatory Fines & Legal Battles: News in 2024 and 2025 frequently reports on Meta facing substantial fines and ongoing legal challenges from regulators in various regions (e.g., EU under the Digital Markets Act, Nigeria, India's Competition Commission of India - CCI).
For example, March and May 2025 news from India detailed Meta's ongoing appeal against a ₹213 crore (approx. $25.3 million USD) penalty and a five-year ban imposed by the CCI on WhatsApp's data sharing with Facebook and Instagram for advertising purposes. Regulators argue Meta's 2021 "take it or leave it" privacy policy update was anti-competitive and coercive.