The effectivity of WhatsApp’s new privacy policy is almost upon us and that means users will have to accept or not the changes by May 15. They have spent weeks trying to do an information campaign on what the new policy actually is and not the “fake news” that spread around before their clarification. Now they are also clarifying what happens after May 15 and the short version is that they will not delete your account if you don’t accept the terms. But eventually, your account will become pretty useless so you might as well leave now and use another messaging app if the privacy policy is not acceptable to you.
There will not be a magic button that will render all accounts that have not accepted the new privacy policy obsolete by May 15. Instead, it’s a pretty gradual process. You’ve probably seen the notification in WhatsApp the past few weeks and that will remain after May 15. Eventually, after a few weeks (number of weeks not indicated), the notification will become persistent. By that time, you’ll also be getting “limited functionality” for your app.
At first, you will no longer be able to access your chat list. However, you will still be able to receive phone and video calls. Also, if you have your notifications on, you can still read and answer messages through the notification window or call back missed phone or video calls. After a few weeks of this limited functionality, you won’t be able to receive calls and the app will stop sending both messages and calls to your device.
So you’ll get a few weeks reprieve after May 15 but eventually, you’ll lose all functionality on the app even if they will not delete it. By that time anyway, if you still haven’t made up your mind whether or not to accept the new privacy policy, you’ve probably decided to switch messaging apps anyway. And if you do decide to leave, you can always export your chat history. That’s where the not deleting your account probably comes in.
But remember, once you delete your WhatsApp account, it cannot be reversed. It will erase your message history and remove you from all WhatsApp groups. And it will also delete your backups so make sure you’ve transferred that elsewhere before you delete.