The combination of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.. more personal data than NSA

Facebook has acquired WhatsApp for US$19 billion. They will pay $4 billion in cash and the remaining $12 billion in Facebook shares. The agreement also provides for an additional $3 billion in restricted stock units to be granted to WhatsApp’s founders and employees that will vest over four years subsequent to closing.

WhatsApp, no doubt is a brilliant App and for the 5 years since its beginning they have grown by leaps and bounds. As of November 10, 2013, WhatsApp had over 190 million monthly active users, 400 million photos are shared each day, and the messaging system handles more than 10 billion messages each day.  In a December 2013 blog post, WhatsApp claimed that 400 million active users use the service each month.

 December 2013, WhatsApp blog

We also heard from a British woman who runs a charity in Uganda. She told us that her team on the ground uses WhatsApp to send daily reports, photos, and videos of the children they’re helping, which she shares to build support for her organization all over the world.

Doctors in India are using WhatsApp to instantly send electrocardiogram pictures of patients who’ve suffered heart attacks, saving valuable time and potentially lives.

What happens after installing WhatsApp

Upon installation, it creates a user account using one’s phone number as the username. WhatsApp software automatically compares all the phone numbers from the device’s address book with its central database of WhatsApp users to automatically add contacts to the user’s WhatsApp contact list.

According to the Think-Tank L2 Intelligence Instagram grew its user base to 150 Million monthly active users against the 60 Million active users during 2013.

Mark has enough data to co-relate any one individual to the phone number on the planet using any two or three applications that is Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp to get a close to accurate information about the individual, immediate family members, friends and then on its a chain.  The data also provides telephone number not only of the marked individual but also of everyone in his phone address book.

Is it a matter of concern?

Certainly not, as long as it is not used for marketing purposes or sold.

One can never predict the future, it could be a zombie apocalypse.