Facebook – Does WhatsApp ‘upload’ contact list to Facebook’s databases? If so, how to prevent

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I'm trying to find out if installing WhatsApp will send the information of all my contacts to Facebook. The Usage of your phone number and address book FAQ page is not clear about that.

I can deny the app access to my contact list but that is counterproductive to using it. It's fine if WhatsApp accesses my contact list but I want that information to stay 'in my phone'.

Just as I do not allow Google or LinkedIn to collect my contact list, I also want to prevent my friends' information ending up in the Facebook databases (through me). After all, my friends never gave permission for that.

This is what the FAQ says about Usage of your phone number and address book, but that still does not answer my question:

WhatsApp users do not have access to your address book information, unless you share a contact using the "Share Contact" feature in a chat. We value your privacy and we have not, do not, and will not ever sell your personal information to anyone. If you would like to learn more, please take a look at our Privacy Policy that helps explain our information practices.

WhatsApp uses the phone numbers from your phone's address book to provide you an up-to-date list of WhatsApp users you know to make it easier for you to message them via WhatsApp. WhatsApp regularly looks at the phone numbers in your address book and then checks to see which of those numbers are verified in WhatsApp. During this entire process, phone numbers are sent to WhatsApp for lookup, securely, over an encrypted connection. So that you know who you are chatting with, the app then displays the names from your address book.

Maybe superfluous to say: I do not have Facebook/Messenger installed on my (Android) phone.

Best Answer

(Partially answering my own question)

The privacy policy section Information We Collect states:

You provide us the phone numbers in your mobile address book on a regular basis, including those of both the users of our Services and your other contacts. You confirm you are authorized to provide us such numbers.

Note that last sentence that you have to agree with.

So this answers that 'we'=WhatsApp Inc collects the information from my contact list. In how far this is passed on to 'Facebook' is unclear:

WhatsApp is part of the Facebook family of companies, and sharing some information allows us to coordinate more and improve experiences across our services and those of Facebook and the Facebook family.

Update March 2018, quoting from the NakedSecurity blog by Sophos:
Facebook: we won’t share data with WhatsApp (yet)

WhatsApp can’t share user data with parent Facebook without breaking the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), so it won’t.

It’s signed a public commitment not to share personal data with Facebook until data protection concerns are addressed

So it seems that they don't but still want to if they can make it legally possible. No suprise there.

The blog post gives a good overview of past facts and intentions, including a reference to that March 2018 'public commitment' document signed by WhatsApp.

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