WhatsApp now using status messages in attempt to reassure users about privacy

American messaging application WhatsApp has now started posting status messages about its "commitment to your privacy," due to misperceptions about the upcoming changes to its privacy policy.

While these status messages have been appearing in India for a while now, according to The Verge, the in-app status messages started appearing in the US and UK on Saturday.

The status messages read "One thing that isn't new is our commitment to your privacy," along with a reminder that "WhatsApp can't read or listen to your personal conversations as they're end-to-end encrypted." As per the Verge, the status messages are part of a larger effort by WhatsApp to dismiss misperceptions about an upcoming update to its privacy policy.

This new update is meant to explain how businesses that use WhatsApp for customer service may store logs of their chats on Facebook's servers.

WhatsApp previewed the changes to business chats in November.

Given Facebook's history of privacy blunders, however, users misinterpreted the changes to the privacy policy to mean WhatsApp would require sharing sensitive profile information with Facebook.