WhatsApp might share your payment data with Facebook
WhatsApp recently beta-launched its UPI-based digital payments feature WhatsApp Pay that allows users to send and receive money through the chat app. WhatsApp might share customers' payment details with parent company Facebook "to operate and improve" the feature. This comes at a time when Facebook is dealing with the Cambridge Analytica scandal that involved data exploitation of up to 87 million Facebook users.
A clause in WhatsApp's privacy policy states, "We share information with third-party service providers including Facebook to send payment instructions to PSPs (payment service providers), maintain your transaction history, provide customer support, and keep our services safe and secure." "This includes detecting, preventing, or otherwise addressing fraud, safety, security, abuse, or other misconduct," it added.
What is not safe: Phone number, UPI PIN, payment amount
The information that WhatsApp might share with Facebook includes phone number, registration information, device identifiers, VPAs (virtual payment addresses), UPI PIN, and payment amount. This contradicts another WhatsApp statement where it ensured that the debit card details and ATM PIN/UPI PIN that users have to provide to the chat app at the time of setting up the payments feature is received but not retained.
According to the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), WhatsApp requires to get its exclusive permission before sharing customer data "with any third party including its own parent, subsidiaries, and subsidiaries of parents." Notably, NPCI oversees all digital payments platforms and banks associated with UPI.
