Does WhatsApp read or sell your business chats? What WhatsApp collects about your number, what it shares with Meta, and what it gives governments

WhatsApp's Help Center says every personal message, call, photo or video, voice message and document you send is protected by end-to-end encryption by default. That means only you and the person you are chatting with can read or hear it. In WhatsApp's words, no one else, not even WhatsApp (or Meta), can read, listen to, or share them.

Its Privacy at a Glance page (a page WhatsApp says is written for people who use Status and Channels without ads) adds status updates, and your location when you turn on location sharing in a chat, to that list.

The Help Center pages above are written for WhatsApp in general. WhatsApp also publishes a separate WhatsApp Business App Privacy Policy, effective 14 July 2025, for what it calls Business Functions: the features made for businesses, such as the catalog and greeting and away messages. For everything the Business app shares with ordinary WhatsApp, the policy points back to the WhatsApp Privacy Policy. It also says not every Business Function is available everywhere.

The WhatsApp Terms for WhatsApp Business App, effective 23 September 2026, list this privacy policy among the documents they incorporate by reference, which makes it part of those terms. The terms name WhatsApp LLC as the company that provides the Business app outside what they call the European Region.

On top of what the WhatsApp Privacy Policy covers, the Business App Privacy Policy lists:

What you must give

Your phone number and basic information about your business, including your business name and business category. Without them you can't create the account.

What you can add

A profile picture and cover photo, your business address, business email and website, a description of the business, the products or services you offer (their names, descriptions, images, videos, prices and related marketing materials), and your intended audience.

How you use the business tools

Collected automatically: your business profile settings, how you use Business Functions such as catalogs, labels and quick replies, purchases and transactions with your business, and metrics on how customers interact with your business.

What customers do about you

When users report, give feedback on, set communication preferences for, or block a business, WhatsApp associates that with the business.

The policy says WhatsApp uses this to run, improve, support and market the Business app, including business support, onboarding tools, tools to create and deliver messages, new Business Functions (some of which may be offered by third parties or Meta), and researching, developing and testing new features. Under safety and integrity it lists creating quality and integrity inferences about businesses, and making sure businesses follow WhatsApp's terms and policies.

The Business app terms say more. Under acceptable use, they say WhatsApp uses what other users report, for example when they block you or share your messages in a complaint, to decide whether you have broken its terms or policies, and that it can then limit, throttle, suspend or terminate the account.

Your business profile is public

The policy says your business name, phone number, hours, business category, address, email address, website(s), description, and your Facebook and Instagram accounts (if you added them) are publicly available. It adds that WhatsApp may give users ways to find or reach you, such as its Business Search or other search. The policy doesn't say in which countries Business Search is offered.

Tools you connect

You can connect the Business app to products and services from third parties or Meta. The policy's examples are cloud storage and hosting, customer-records tools, tools to create, deliver and manage ads and messages, business analytics, and AI tools. When you use them, their own terms and privacy policies govern your use.

Keeping, deleting and the law

For keeping and deleting information, legal requests, its global operations and how it works with other Meta companies, the policy points back to the WhatsApp Privacy Policy.

If WhatsApp changes hands

In a merger, acquisition, restructuring, bankruptcy or sale of some or all of its assets, WhatsApp says it will share your information with the new owners, in line with data protection laws.

When it changes

WhatsApp says it will give notice of changes as appropriate and update the Effective Date at the top of the policy.

The Business app terms add one line on customer data. Under Your Customer Contacts, the business gives WhatsApp its customers' contact details, which the terms call Customer Data, and the business decides which customers it contacts. Where a data protection law uses the roles of controller and processor and requires a data processing agreement between them (the terms give the EU and UK GDPR and Brazil's LGPD as examples), the business accepts that it is the controller. It tells WhatsApp to process the personal information in that customer data on its behalf, as its processor, so the business can contact its customers, under the WhatsApp Business Data Processing Terms.

WhatsApp says it is part of Meta and works with other Meta companies to provide, improve and support each other's services. Its pages name two kinds of sharing:

When you connect things

If you choose to integrate WhatsApp with other Meta products, WhatsApp shares some information with Meta to make that work. Its example is sharing your WhatsApp Status to Facebook.

To improve its products, including safety

Privacy at a Glance says WhatsApp may also receive and share information with other Meta products to make your experience with its products better, including for safety purposes.

Privacy at a Glance also says WhatsApp shares information with companies that provide telecoms technology or security services, so they can help run WhatsApp, and that it requires them to use it the way WhatsApp directs.

WhatsApp's page on the 2016 opt-out says some people opted out that year of sharing their WhatsApp account information with Facebook. Since then WhatsApp has added optional features that connect it with other Meta companies, which may need your information to be shared, and you have the option not to use them.

Privacy at a Glance says that if you back up your chats to iCloud or to your Google Account, those services receive the information you share with them, including your WhatsApp messages.

WhatsApp offers end-to-end encryption for backups, which it calls an extra layer of privacy. Once turned on, your messages and media are stored in iCloud or your Google Account protected by a password or a 64-digit encryption key. WhatsApp warns that if you lose the password or key and can't get into WhatsApp, you can't restore the backup, and not even WhatsApp can help recover it.

WhatsApp's page on government requests opens with: WhatsApp cannot and does not produce the content of its user's messages in response to government requests. It says message content is kept only on your phone, and in your cloud backup if you choose one.

Every request is reviewed

A dedicated, trained team reviews each request, supported by in-house and outside lawyers, to check it fits the law it was issued under and WhatsApp's policies.

What it may hand over

Depending on the request, and if available: basic subscriber information (such as name, service start date, last seen date, IP address, device type and email address) and account information (such as 'about', profile photos, group information and contacts list).

Message logs

Normally WhatsApp does not store message logs once messages are delivered. Under a valid legal request it may start collecting, for a particular user, who a message or call was to or from, when, from which IP address, and whether it was a text or a call. Not the content.

Emergencies

It may disclose information in an emergency where it believes in good faith there is an imminent risk of serious injury or death.

Pushing back

WhatsApp says it pushes back on or rejects requests that are unlawful, overly broad or legally deficient, and would challenge any order to redesign its systems to weaken its encryption.

Telling you

It reserves the right to notify users before disclosing, unless the law forbids it or in exceptional cases.

Twice a year

It publishes details of government requests and its responses twice a year in Meta's Government Requests for User Data Report.

A separate page explains why WhatsApp opposes traceability, meaning a rule forcing it to find out who first sent a particular message. WhatsApp says traceability breaks end-to-end encryption, because there is no way to know in advance which message a government will want: in order to trace even one message, services would have to trace every message.

WhatsApp's page How safe and secure is WhatsApp names three layers that are on by default:

Default privacy

No one outside your chats can read, listen to or share your personal messages.

Automatic spam detection

WhatsApp says it catches and removes most spam and scam accounts before they reach you, or before anyone reports them.

Proactive security alerts

WhatsApp asks you to verify your identity if it detects a suspicious attempt to take over your account.

Beyond those, WhatsApp points to two-step verification, using only the official app, controlling who can add you to groups, and backups. Privacy checkup, in Settings > Privacy, walks through your privacy settings in one place. To see what WhatsApp holds about you, Privacy at a Glance points to Request account info in Settings > Account, next to Change number and Delete my account.