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WhatsApp Explains What Will Happen When Users Don’t Accept Its Privacy Changes
WhatsApp’s updated Privacy Policy has been causing a lot of anger and confusion among the Facebook-owned instant messaging and voice-over-IP service since it has been released on January 4. Now, WhatsApp has finally explained what will happen to users who don’t accept it.
The new Privacy Policy states, among other things, that WhatsApp receives information from other Facebook companies and provides information to other Facebook companies.
“We may use the information we receive from them, and they may use the information we share with them, to help operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services and their offerings, including the Facebook Company Products.”
TechCrunch was the first to reveal that WhatsApp plans to give users some time to review the changes before forcing them to make a decision whether to accept it or not. A newly created FAQ page makes it clear that users have until May 15 to accept the Privacy Policy updates.
Those who fail to meet the deadline won’t lose their WhatsApp account, but they won’t be able to use it to its full extend either. Instead, they will only be able to receive calls and notifications — not actually read or send messages from the app.
The accounts of users who don’t accept after May 15 will be considered to be inactive, which automatically triggers a 120-day countdown to account deletion. Once deleted, WhatsApp accounts can’t be restored.
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If you don’t want to accept the new Privacy Policy and allow WhatsApp to share your personal information with other Facebook companies, your best bet is to use an alternative instant messaging and voice-over-IP service.
For example, Telegram makes it possible for users to easily migrate their chat history from WhatsApp, and it has a far more user-respecting Privacy Policy to boot. Other WhatsApp alternatives worth considering include Signal, Viber, Discord, and Threema, just to name a few.
News
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget
The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
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