According to many sources, using WhatsApp commercially is illegal because its Terms of Service ban use “for any commercial solicitation or spam purposes.” But this has nothing to do with business use of WhatsApp. IAAL, and using WhatsApp for customer service or even (solicited) sales chats is perfectly legal.
If you act or communicate in such a way that can reasonably be expected to illicit a violent reaction, you can be charged under Section 17 of the Riotous Assemblies Act, no 17 of 1956. This applies even if you were joking as the law does not care about your intention, said Visser.
Over 180 countries allow WhatsApp; only five countries forbid WhatsApp use. In Which Country Is WhatsApp Banned? WhatsApp is banned in China, North Korea, Syria, Qatar and the UAE. We have a guide on how to unblock WhatsApp and VoIP services in Qatar and other countries.
Otherwise, you may be violating patient privacy laws. Just be careful how you use screenshots. For example, if you shared a screenshot of someone's private messages or emails and shared them without the person's consent, you would be violating their privacy.
We do not retain data for law enforcement purposes unless we receive a valid preservation request before a user has deleted that content from our service. In the ordinary course of providing our service, WhatsApp does not store messages once they are delivered or transaction logs of such delivered messages.
No, you cannot track WhatsApp calls. The end-to-end encryption of your WhatsApp call prevents it from being recorded.
The content of all messages sent using WhatsApp are protected by the same Signal encryption protocol that secures messages before they leave your device, which ensures only you and the person you're communicating with can listen to or read what you're sending, and nobody in between, not even WhatsApp.
Even if you were involved in a conversation that was legally recorded, it's still illegal to communicate the conversation or publish it without the permission of the other people involved in the conversation (with some exceptions).
The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) is a federal law that makes it a crime to access someone else's private communications without permission. It covers cell phones, computer use, email, social media accounts, and other types of electronic communications.
In short, if you are not a party to a conversation, or you do not have the consent of a party to that conversation, you cannot record or publish that conversation.
We ban accounts if we believe the account activity violates our Terms of Service, for example if it involves spam, scams or if it puts WhatsApp users' safety at risk. If you think your account was banned by mistake, please email us or tap request a review in the app and we'll look into your case.
Quite simply, WhatsApp cannot detect what you write in conversations, whether they are private or in groups (all are encrypted by default). Therefore, it cannot block your account just because you write something. There are no banned words and you can't be locked out of your account just because you typed them.
We ban accounts if we believe the account activity is in violation of our Terms of Service. Please review the “Acceptable Use of our Business Services” section of our Terms of Service carefully to learn more about the appropriate uses of the WhatsApp Business app and the activities that violate our Terms of Service.
WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption to keep data safe while it is transferred from sender to recipient. So is WhatsApp safe to use? Yes — texts sent through the secure messaging app will be encrypted while in transit, so only you and the person you're messaging can see them.
EAVESDROPPING LAW AND HOW IT RELATES TO ELECTRONIC SNOOPING
The law does not allow a person to intercept, authorise or do any act or thing that will enable him or her to intercept a communication passing over a telecommunication system.
Formal discovery requires a party to disclose anything asked by the other party which is relevant and within the control of the party. This includes text messages (unless they were deleted). Failure to answer discovery may result in the finding of contempt against the spouse.
According to the TCPA, the FCC's leading law for electronic communications since 1991, businesses and other organizations must obtain written consent from people before sending them any text messages.
Posting on the internet recordings of conversations, which the victim considered private at the time, may constitute harassment of the victim but might also result in civil legal action against the harasser for misuse of private information.
"Under the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995, it is a crime to menace, harass or cause offence using the internet or telephone. "Those who feel they are a victim of technology-facilitated abuse, which include the offences of stalking or intimidation, should report this to police."
Sexting is a crime if you intentionally distribute an intimate image of a person under 18 to others, even if they agree to the sext message being sent. You could also be charged by police with child pornography offences.
The FBI's revelation showed that WhatsApp is the only popular secure messaging app that provides near-real-time data in response to law enforcement requests. WhatsApp confirmed this to Rolling Stone.
Apps like Spyzie and mSPY can easily hack into your WhatsApp account for stealing your private data. All you need to do is purchase the app, install it, and activate it on the target phone. You can then simply sit back and connect to your app dashboard from the web browser, and snoop in on private WhatsApp data.
While WhatsApp encrypts user communication, several instances have now shown that it still collects enough data about its users to allow governments to mount highly effective surveillance and thus put user privacy at risk.
Security and end-to-end encryption
So, is WhatsApp more secure than texting? Well, WhatsApp uses the latest end-to-end encryption protocols – so in theory, all messages sent via WhatsApp can only be seen by the sender and recipient(s).