"No accounts will be deleted on May 15 because of this update and no one in India will lose functionality of Whatsapp either. We will follow up with reminders to people over the next several weeks," the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that while a "majority of users who have received the new terms of service have accepted them", some people have not had the chance to do so yet.
The Facebook-owned messaging platform was under fire over user concerns that data was being shared with the parent company. For those who are unaware WhatsApp was earlier accused of forcing its users to accept the ‘privacy policy or leave the platform'.
WhatsApp had unveiled its updated privacy policy in January and had given users time till February 8 to accept the same in order to continue using the service. However, the platform was forced to defer the implementation of the new policy update due to severe criticism. The Indian government had also recently asked WhatsApp to roll back its controversial policy.
The policy focused on addressing data sharing with its parent company Facebook, especially where business accounts were concerned, but there were no changes to its end-to-end encryption, which is present on all private chats.
