Privacy at a Glance: Additional Information about the Updates Tab

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Note: Channel subscriptions are only available in certain countries and may not be available to you yet.

The Updates Tab, home to Status and Channels, is a separate space from your personal chats and calls. When you use the Updates Tab, we collect and use limited information about you. We hope this guide, together with our main Privacy at a Glance guide, will help you to understand what information we collect, what we do with it, and how your privacy rights work.

How does Status work?

Status is an optional feature for users to share and re-share ‘status updates’ like photos, videos, voice notes and text with their mutual contacts that last 24 hours. Status updates are end-to-end encrypted when shared on WhatsApp.

How does Channels work?

Channels is an optional, one-way broadcasting feature within WhatsApp, which allows ‘admins’ to create their own channel and share ‘channel updates’ for others to view. Both followers and non-followers of a channel can view and react to channel updates.

Learn how to create a WhatsApp channel, how to find and follow WhatsApp channels, and about privacy and safety on WhatsApp channels.

Channels are public, which means if you create a channel, others may be able to find, follow, and view your channel and see your channel updates.

In some countries and for some channels, you can support your favorite channels by paying for a subscription. When you subscribe to a channel, you can access channel updates only for subscribers. Learn more about channel subscriptions here.

In some countries, admins will be able to pay to promote their channel to other users. A promoted channel will show up higher in the Channels directory and will be shown to users who may be interested in that type of channel.

Channels is separate from messaging on WhatsApp. Using channels has no impact on the privacy of your personal WhatsApp messages, which continue to be end-to-end encrypted.

Information we collect

When you use WhatsApp, we collect information from you as described in Privacy at a Glance. If you choose to use the Updates Tab, we collect some additional information from you. This could be:

When you share a status update or view other users' status updates:

How you use Status, like how often you share, reshare, view or react to status updates

If you're a channel admin:

The name that you choose for your channel
Other information that you choose to add to the channel, such as a picture, a channel description, or links to other websites
Channel updates that you share, such as text or audio content, videos, photos, images, documents, links, gifs, stickers, and polls

If you're a follower or a non-follower viewing channel updates:

Channels you follow
Your reactions to channel content (for example, poll votes, emojis or questions)
Your language choices

If you're subscribed to a channel:

Payment information related to your subscription, like your payment type and amount and time of payment
Subscription details, like when your subscription to a channel starts or when your monthly renewal is due

If we show you ads in Status or Channels:

How you interact with the ads you see, like whether you view or tap the ad, follow a promoted channel, or make a purchase on WhatsApp
How you interact with advertisers, like whether you send them a message after seeing an ad

If you add your WhatsApp Account to Accounts Center:

Information from your other accounts in the same Accounts Center, which you can learn about here

For all Updates Tab users:

Your activity on the Updates Tab, such as which channels and channel updates you follow or review and your reactions to or engagement with channel updates and status updates
Usage information, such as which Updates Tab features and settings you use, your searches within the channels directory, and the date, time, frequency, and duraction or your activity in the Updates Tab
Technical information relating to how well Status and Channels are working when you use them, such as crash data, performance logs, and error messages
User reports made by others about your channel, specific channel updates or status updates, or user reactions

Your information may be shared by you, or by us, with other people or organizations when you use Status or Channels in the Updates Tab. For example:

It’s important to remember that channel updates shared by admins are public and can be seen by others. You should be careful about what information you share on channels. Anyone can take screenshots or make recordings of channel updates and send them to other people or post them in other places online. Learn more about safety and privacy on channels for admins.
Status updates can be seen by those you select. Status updates are end-to-end encrypted when shared on WhatsApp, but they too can be recorded or screenshotted and shown to others and can also be reshared.
Admins, subscribers, followers and non-followers who view channel updates can share links with other people and invite them to follow or view a channel. If these links are shared on other Meta Company Products or on other services, Meta and those services will receive information about the channel, such as the name, description, picture, and number of followers.
We work with other Meta Companies to help keep you safe when you use the Updates Tab. For example, this could be to help protect you against harmful conduct or to investigate possible violations of our policies or the law. We also share information with other Meta Companies to help us provide channels, as described in Privacy at a Glance.
If you’re a channel subscriber, we work with other companies like Google, Apple, and other Meta Companies to help you pay for your subscriptions.
If we show you ads on the Updates Tab, we provide advertisers with reports about the performance of their ads. If you choose to add WhatsApp to Accounts Center, your ad preferences will apply and info from across your accounts will be used for ads. Learn more about WhatsApp in Accounts Center.
When you’re a channel follower or non-follower viewing channel updates, you’re not visible to other viewers or followers of that channel, and they can’t see how you interact with channel updates. This means they can’t see your name, phone number, or profile picture.
Admins may see your profile picture (if your privacy setting permits) and your profile name if you interact with their channel updates. Admins can't see your full phone number unless they have you saved as a contact.
Users who post status updates can see who views, reacts to them and also reshares them.
If you become an admin of a channel that has one or more admins, your phone number will be shared with the other admins. Learn more about safety and privacy on Channels.
If you have added your WhatsApp account to Accounts Center, your information will be shared as described in this article.

What we do with your information

As described in Privacy at a Glance, we use your information in line with legal requirements. This could be:

To meet the terms of our contractual agreement with you
Where you have consented to us using your information
Where we believe we have a legitimate business reason that is not outweighed by any impact on your privacy rights
To protect the key interests of you and other people, including physical and mental health, well-being, and safety

How we use your information will vary depending on how you use the Updates Tab. For example, this may include:

If you share status updates, or view or react to them:

Enabling you to share, reshare, view and react to status updates

If you are a channel admin:

Enabling you to create and manage your channels and to share and edit channel updates. Learn how to edit channel updates and how to delete channel updates
Providing you with access to information relating to your channel, such as the number of views of channel updates, reactions to channel updates, and your WhatsApp contacts following your channel

If you are a follower or a non-follower viewing channel updates:

Enabling you to follow/unfollow, view, or mute/unmute a channel and to forward or react to channel updates
Creating and maintaining a directory of channels by category, so that you can search for channels that are of interest to you
Showing channels to you based on your country or location and language preference
Recommending channels that may be more relevant to you when you search or explore. Learn more about how WhatsApp recommends channels

If you subscribe to channels:

Processing your payments to pay for your channels subscriptions.
Managing your channel subscriptions start and end dates and to renew your subscription

If we show you ads on the Updates Tab (e.g., Status and Channels):

Showing you ads based on information about you like your country and language, the channels you follow, and how you have interacted with ads in the past
Measuring how you interact with ads, like whether you tap an ad or make a purchase on WhatsApp, and informing advertisers about how their ads are performing

For all Updates Tab users:

Providing and improving the features in the Updates Tab, including Status and Channels, like enabling you to share, view and react to channel updates and status updates
Understanding how users are using Updates Tab features
Detecting, preventing and investigating suspicious activity, harmful behavior, and breaches of our terms and guidelines

Your privacy rights

You have certain rights when we use your information in connection with the Updates Tab. You can find out more about these rights in Privacy at a Glance.

You can request a copy of your channels information or move this information using the ‘Request channels report’ option under the ‘Request account info’ feature (in WhatsApp, go to Settings > Account). You can also request a report with information about the ads you’ve seen in the same settings menu.

Learn more about how to manage channel info and settings and about ads on WhatsApp in Status and Channels.

If an admins deletes a channel, this will:

Remove the channel
Remove all channel updates from the admin's WhatsApp account, which will no longer be accessible to other users
Cancel all subscriptions to that channel

Learn more about how to delete a channel.

Note: If other users have copies of channel updates on their device, or have forwarded the channel updates to other people, these will not be deleted when a channel is deleted. It is important to remember this when sharing or posting channel updates.

Thank you for using the Updates Tab, we hope you’ve found this guide helpful.

You can find more details about your privacy rights and about how we use your information in our Teen Information Center, Privacy at a Glance and our Updates Tab Privacy Policy.