Last modified: January 4, 2021 (archived versions)
WhatsApp Terms of Service
Table of Contents
About our services
Privacy Policy and User Data
Permitted Uses of Our Services
Third Party Services
licenses
Reporting Copyright, Trademark, and Other Intellectual Property Infringement of Third Parties
Disclaimers and Indemnification
Limitation of Liability
Resolution of Disputes
Availability and Termination or Cancellation of Our Services
Miscellaneous
Access to the terms of WhatsApp in different languages
If you live in a country outside the European Region, WhatsApp LLC provides WhatsApp to you under these Terms of Service and this Privacy Policy.
Click here for the WhatsApp contract summary and information we are required to provide under the European Electronic Communications Code.
In order to provide our Services (defined below) through our apps, services, features, software or website, we require your agreement to our Terms of Service (“Terms of Service”).
WhatsApp Ireland Limited ("WhatsApp", "our", "we" or "us") provides you with the services described below (collectively, "Services") when you are in a country or region reside in the European Economic Area (which includes the European Union) or any other included country or territory (collectively referred to as the “European Region”).
If you live in a country or territory outside of the European Region, WhatsApp LLC will provide the Services to you subject to these Terms of Service and this Privacy Policy.
About our services
Privacy and Security Principles.
Since WhatsApp's launch, we've strived to build our services with strong privacy and security principles in mind.
We connect you to others.
We provide you with ways to communicate with other WhatsApp users, e.g. B. by messaging, voice and video calls, sending pictures and videos, showing your status and sharing your location with others if you choose to do so.
We are always striving to improve these possibilities even further.
WhatsApp works with partners, service providers, and affiliates to help us provide you with ways to connect to their Services.
communication with companies.
We're always striving to provide even better ways for you, businesses, and other organizations to communicate with each other through our Services, such as information about orders, transactions, and appointments, delivery and shipping notifications, product and service updates, and marketing.
We provide certain features and services to businesses and other organizations; e.g. B. We provide you with statistics on your use of our services.
security and integrity.
We strive to protect the security and integrity of our Services.
This includes dealing appropriately with abusive behavior by individuals and abusive activities that violate our Terms of Service.
We strive to prohibit misuse of our Services, particularly harmful behavior towards others.
If we become aware of any such person or activity, we will take appropriate action and remove such person or activity or contact the authorities.
In such event, we will always proceed as described in the Termination section below.
Enabling access to our services.
In order to operate our global services, we need to store and distribute content and information in our data centers and systems around the world.
This also includes countries outside of your country of residence.
Leveraging this global infrastructure is necessary and central to the delivery of our services.
This infrastructure may be owned or operated by our service providers, such as our affiliates.
NO ACCESS TO EMERGENCY SERVICES: There are important differences between our Services and the calling or texting services on your cell phone and landline phone.
Our Services do not provide access to emergency services or emergency service providers, including police, fire departments or hospitals, or otherwise connect to public emergency dispatchers.
You should ensure that you can reach your appropriate emergency service provider through a mobile, landline, or other service.
Registration.
You must register for our Services using correct information, provide your current mobile phone number, and update it using our in-app Change Number feature if it changes.
You agree to receive text messages and phone calls with codes to register for our services (from us or our third-party providers).
Directory.
Where permitted by applicable law, you may use the contact upload feature and periodically provide us with the phone numbers in your mobile address book, including both those of users of our Services and those of your other contacts.
Learn more about our contact upload feature.
Alter.
If you live in a country or territory in the European Region, you must be at least 16 years of age to use our Services, or the age required in your country or territory to register for or use our Services without parental authorization, if greater have age.
If you live in a country or territory that is not in the European Region, you must be at least 13 years of age to use our Services or, if greater, the age of 13 in your country or territory to register for or use our Services have the required age.
In addition to the requirement that you be of legal age to use our Services under applicable law, if you are not old enough to be eligible to agree to our Terms in your country or territory, one of your parents or a Legal guardian agree to our terms on your behalf in order for you to use our services.
Ask one of your parents or legal guardians to read these Terms with you.
devices and software.
You must provide certain devices, software, and data connections to use our Services, which we do not otherwise provide.
To use our services, you consent to the manual or automatic download and installation of updates to our services.
You also consent to us sending you communications about our Services from time to time as necessary to provide our Services to you.
Fees and Taxes.
You are responsible for all data plans and Internet charges from your wireless service provider or carrier, and any other fees and taxes associated with your use of our Services.
Privacy Policy and User Data
WhatsApp cares about your privacy.
WhatsApp's Privacy Policy explains our practices regarding data (including messages), including the types of information we receive and collect from you, how we use and share that information, and your rights regarding the processing of information about you.
Permitted Uses of Our Services
Our Terms of Service and Policies.
You must use our Services in accordance with our Terms of Service and Policies.
If you violate our terms of service or policies, we may take action regarding your account, including deactivating or suspending your account, and if we do so, you agree that you will not create another account without our permission.
Whenever we deactivate or suspend your account, we will do so as described in the Termination section below.
Lawful and Acceptable Use.
You may access or use our Services only for lawful, legitimate and permissible purposes.
You will not use (or assist others to use) our Services in any way that: (a) violates the rights of WhatsApp, our users, or others (including privacy, publicity, intellectual property, or other proprietary rights ) violates, misappropriates or violates them; (b) is unlawful, obscene, abusive, threatening, intimidating, harassing, hateful, racially or ethnically objectionable, or incites or encourages conduct that would be illegal or otherwise inappropriate, including promoting violent crime, endangerment or exploitation of children or others or coordinating the infliction of suffering; (c) involves the publication of falsehoods, misrepresentations or misleading statements; (d) impersonates anyone; (e) includes sending illegal or improper communications such as bulk messaging, auto-messaging, auto-dialing and the like; or (f) involves any non-private use of our Services unless authorized by us.
Harm to WhatsApp or our users.
You may not, directly or indirectly, by automated means or otherwise, use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute our Services in any unauthorized or unauthorized way that would burden, harm or harm us, our Services, systems, users or others (or assist others to do so) , license, sublicense, transmit, display, perform or otherwise exploit or access or create derivative works based on them.
This includes not doing the following, either directly or by automated means: (a) reverse engineer, alter, modify, create derivative works from, decompile or extract the code of our Services; (b) send or transmit any virus or other harmful computer code through or store on our Services; (c) gain or attempt to gain unauthorized access to our Services or systems; (d) disrupt or disrupt the integrity or performance of our Services; (e) create accounts for our Services through unauthorized or automated means; (f) collect information from or about our users in any illegal or unauthorized way; (g) sell, resell, rent or charge for our Services or information obtained through our Services; or (h) distribute or make our Services available over a network where they could be used by multiple devices at the same time; (i) develop software or APIs that work essentially like our Services and make them available for use by unauthorized third parties, or (j) abuse any reporting channels, such as by submitting fraudulent or unsubstantiated reports or objections.
Security of your account.
You are responsible for maintaining the security of your device and WhatsApp account, and you must notify us immediately of any unauthorized use or security breach involving your account or our Services.
Third Party Services
Our Services may allow you to access, use, or interact with websites, apps, content or other products and services of third parties and Facebook companies.
For example, you may choose to use third-party backup services (such as iCloud or Google Drive) that integrate with our Services, or interact with a "share" button on a third-party website that allows you to share information to send your WhatsApp contacts.
Please note that these Terms and our Privacy Policy only apply to your use of our Services.
If you use third-party products or services or other Facebook Company products, their own terms and privacy policies apply to your use of those products and services.
licenses
your rights.
WhatsApp does not claim ownership of the information you submit for your WhatsApp account or through our Services.
You must have the necessary rights in relation to the information you submit for your WhatsApp account or through our Services and the right to grant the rights and licenses under our Terms.
WhatsApp rights.
We own all copyrights, trademarks, domains, logos, trade dress, trade secrets, patents, and other intellectual property rights associated with our Services.
You may not use our copyrights, trademarks (or other trade dress), domain names, logos, trade dress, trade secrets, patents, or other intellectual property rights unless you have our express permission and use is in accordance with our Trademark Guidelines.
You may not use our affiliates' trademarks without their permission; this may also be done through an authorization in any published trademark guidelines.
The license from you to WhatsApp.
In order for us to operate and provide our Services, you grant WhatsApp a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, create derivative works from, display, and perform the information (including Content) you upload to or upload, transmit, store, send or receive via our service(s).
The rights granted by you under this license are limited to the purpose of operating and providing our services (for example, allowing us to display your profile picture and status message, deliver your messages, and your undelivered messages for up to 30 days on our servers while we try to deliver it).
WhatsApp's license to you.
We grant you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, and non-transferable license to use our Services subject to and consistent with our Terms.
This license is for the sole purpose of enabling you to use our Services in the ways permitted by our Terms.
No license or right is granted to you by implication or otherwise, except for the licenses and rights expressly granted to you.
Reporting Copyright, Trademark, and Other Intellectual Property Infringement of Third Parties
To report claims of copyright, trademark or other intellectual property infringement of a third party, please visit our Intellectual Property Policy.
We may take action on your account, including deactivating or suspending your account, if you flagrantly, severely, or repeatedly infringe the intellectual property rights of others, or if we are required to do so for legal reasons.
Whenever we deactivate or suspend your account, we will do so as described in the Termination section below.
Disclaimers and Indemnification
You use our services at your own risk and subject to the following disclaimers.
We provide our Services "as is" without warranties of any kind, either express or implied; this relates, among other things, warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, ownership, non-infringement, and non-infringement of computer viruses or other harmful code.
We do not warrant that any information we provide is accurate, complete, or useful, that our Services will be operational, error-free, or secure, or that our Services will operate without interruptions, delays, or defects.
We do not control how or when our users use our Services or the features, services, and interfaces provided by our Services, and we are not responsible for such control.
We are not responsible for, and have no obligation to, control the actions or information (including Content) of our users or any other third party.
You will indemnify us, our subsidiaries, affiliates, and our and their directors, officers, employees, partners and agents (collectively, the “WhatsApp Parties”) from any and all known and unknown claims, complaints, causes of action, legal process or disputes (collectively the "Claim") and any claims for damages relating to, arising out of, or in any way connected with any such claim by you against any third party.
The above disclaimer does not affect your rights against WhatsApp if the laws of your country of residence applicable to your use of our Services do not permit it.
Limitation of Liability
WhatsApp is only liable as follows:
WhatsApp is liable without limitation in accordance with the statutory provisions for damages due to death, personal injury or health, in the event of intent, in the event of gross negligence and in accordance with the Product Liability Act.
WhatsApp will use professional care in providing the Services to you.
Provided we have acted with reasonable professional care, WhatsApp will not be responsible for any damage that does not arise from our breach of these Terms or otherwise by any of our actions, for damage that we could not reasonably have foreseen at the time we agreed to these Terms, and for events beyond our reasonable control.
Resolution of Disputes
If you are a consumer and habitually reside in a country or territory in the European Region, the laws of your country or territory will apply to any claim you have against us arising out of or relating to these Terms or our Services arises, and you may resolve your claim in any court having jurisdiction over the claim in your country or territory.
In all other cases, you agree that the claim shall be resolved in a court of competent jurisdiction in Ireland and that these Terms and any claim shall be governed by Irish law, without regard to conflict of law principles.
Availability and Termination or Cancellation of Our Services
Availability of our Services.
We are constantly striving to improve our services.
This means we may expand, add or remove our services and features and support for specific devices and platforms.
Our Services may be interrupted, for example, for maintenance, repairs, improvements, or due to network or equipment failures.
We may discontinue all or any portion of our Services, including certain features and support for certain devices and platforms, at any time upon 30 days' notice; prior notice is not required in urgent situations such as preventing abuse, responding to legal requirements, or resolving security and operational issues.
Events beyond our control may affect our Services, such as natural disasters and other force majeure events.
Termination.
While we hope you remain a WhatsApp user, you can end your relationship with WhatsApp at any time for any reason by deleting your account.
For instructions on how to do this, see our Help Center articles for Android, iPhone or KaiOS.
Our right to termination for good cause remains unaffected.
An important reason exists if one of the parties violates laws, the rights of third parties or these conditions and if the terminating party, after weighing up all the circumstances of the respective case and the interests of both parties, cannot reasonably be required to end the contractual relationship until to the agreed expiry date or to the expiry of a period of notice.
Termination for cause is only possible within a reasonable period of time after becoming aware of the respective breach by the other party.
If the good cause relates to a breach of an obligation under these Terms, termination will only be permitted after any period of grace granted has expired or an unsuccessful warning has been issued.
However, this does not apply if the party in breach of the contract seriously and definitively refuses to fulfill its obligations, or if, after weighing the interests of both parties, it is determined that immediate termination is justified due to special circumstances.
We may also modify, suspend or terminate your access to and use of our Services in accordance with this Section Termination at any time for suspicious or unlawful conduct, including but not limited to: for fraud or if we reasonably believe that you are breaching our Terms or causing harm, risk or potential legal exposure to us, our users or others.
We can also deactivate or delete your account if it does not become active after an account registration or is inactive for a long period of time.
If you delete your account, or we delete or disable it, these Terms will terminate as an agreement between you and us; however, the following provisions will survive any termination or termination of your relationship with WhatsApp: “Licenses”, “Disclaimers and Indemnification”, “Limitation of Liability”, “Dispute Resolution”, “Availability and Termination or Termination of Our Services” and “Miscellaneous” .
If you believe the termination/termination or suspension of your account was in error, please contact us at support@support.whatsapp.com.
Miscellaneous
Except where otherwise provided in an agreement jointly executed between you and us, our Terms of Service constitute the entire agreement between you and us relating to WhatsApp and our Services and supersede any prior agreements.
We reserve the right to determine in the future that certain of our Services are governed by separate Terms of Service (to which you may separately consent).
Our Services are not intended for distribution into any country or for use in any country or territory where such distribution or use would be contrary to local law or subject us to any regulation in any other country or territory.
We reserve the right to restrict our services in any country or territory.
You shall comply with all applicable US and non-US laws relating to export controls and trade sanctions (“Export Laws”).
You may not, directly or indirectly, export, re-export, provide or otherwise transfer our Services: (a) to any person, entity, territory or country prohibited by export laws; (b) to anyone on any US or non-US government banned lists; or (c) for any purpose prohibited by export laws (including but not limited to nuclear, chemical or biological weapons applications or missile technology) without the necessary governmental permits.
You may not use or download our Services if you reside in a country or territory that is subject to restrictions or if you are currently listed on any US or non-US banned lists, including any under export laws forbidden purpose.
Also, you will not use IP proxying or any other method to obfuscate your location.
Any change to our Terms or your waiver thereof requires our express consent.
We are constantly working to improve our services and develop new features to make our products even better for you and our community.
As a result, we may need to update these Terms of Service from time to time to accurately reflect our Services and practices.
We will only make changes if the terms are no longer applicable or if they are incomplete.
Unless otherwise required by law, we will give at least 30 days notice (by email or through the Services) of changes to our Terms so that you have an opportunity to review the revised Terms before they become effective; we will ensure that any changes are appropriate to you, taking into account your interests.
We will also update the "Last Modified" date at the top of our Terms.
Changes to these Terms will not take effect until 30 days after our notice of any proposed changes.
Once updated Terms become effective, you will be bound by them if you continue to use our Services.
While we hope that you will continue to use our Services, if you do not agree to our amended Terms, you must stop using our Services by deleting your account.
All of our rights and obligations under our Terms are freely assignable by us to any of our affiliates in connection with a merger, acquisition, restructuring or sale of assets, or by operation of law or otherwise.
In the event of such an assignment, we will only transfer your information in accordance with applicable laws and, where necessary, we will ask for your consent; these Terms of Use will then continue to govern the relationship between you and the relevant third party.
While we hope that you will continue to use WhatsApp, if you do not consent to such an assignment, you must stop using our Services by deleting your account after being notified of the assignment.
You will not transfer any of your rights or obligations under these Terms of Use to anyone else without our prior written consent.
Nothing in these Terms will prevent us from complying with the law.
Except as otherwise set forth herein, our Terms do not grant any third party any preferential rights.
Our failure to enforce any provision of our Terms of Service will not constitute a waiver of rights.
If any provision of these Terms is held to be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision will be deemed modified to the extent that it becomes enforceable, and if it cannot be made enforceable, it will be deemed modified from our Terms severed; this will not affect the validity and enforceability of the remainder of our Terms of Use, and the remainder of our Terms of Use will remain in full force and effect.
We reserve all rights not expressly granted to you by us.
Certain jurisdictions may give you certain rights as a consumer, and our Terms are not intended to limit those consumer rights, which cannot be waived by contract.
In addition, in certain jurisdictions you may have rights as a data subject.
Our Terms of Use are not intended to limit any rights that cannot be waived by contract.
We always welcome your feedback and suggestions about WhatsApp and our services.
However, you understand that you are under no obligation to provide us with any feedback or suggestions, and we may use your feedback or suggestions without any restriction or obligation to compensate you.
Access to the terms of WhatsApp in different languages
To access our Terms of Service in certain other languages, change the language setting for your WhatsApp session.
If our terms are not available in the language you selected, you will see the English version by default.
Please read the following documents, which will provide you with additional information about your use of our Services:
WhatsApp privacy policy
WhatsApp Intellectual Property Policy
WhatsApp Brand Guidelines