Harmful conduct and unauthorized non-personal use are prohibited
The terms prohibit illegal, abusive, deceptive and infringing use, impersonation, impermissible bulk or automated communications, and non-personal use unless WhatsApp authorizes it.
Supporting quotations
Legal And Acceptable Use. You must access and use our Services only for legal, authorized, and acceptable purposes. You will not use (or assist others in using) our Services in ways that: (a) violate, misappropriate, or infringe the rights of WhatsApp, our users, or others, including privacy, publicity, intellectual property, or other proprietary rights; (b) are illegal, obscene, defamatory, threatening, intimidating, harassing, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, or instigate or encourage conduct that would be illegal or otherwise inappropriate, such as promoting violent crimes, endangering or exploiting children or others, or coordinating harm; (c) involve publishing falsehoods, misrepresentations, or misleading statements; (d) impersonate someone; (e) involve sending illegal or impermissible communications such as bulk messaging, auto-messaging, auto-dialing, and the like; or (f) involve any non-personal use of our Services unless otherwise authorized by us.
Security & Safeguards · Restriction or exception
Technical restrictions target unauthorized access and collection
The terms prohibit reverse engineering, malicious code and disruption, unauthorized automated account creation or data collection, unauthorized resale or competing APIs, and fraudulent reports or appeals. Expressly provided tools can authorize multi-device network use.
Supporting quotations
Harm To WhatsApp Or Our Users. You must not (or assist others to) directly, indirectly, through automated or other means, access, use, copy, adapt, modify, prepare derivative works based upon, distribute, license, sublicense, transfer, display, perform, or otherwise exploit our Services in impermissible or unauthorized manners, or in ways that burden, impair, or harm us, our Services, systems, our users, or others, including that you must not directly or through automated means: (a) reverse engineer, alter, modify, create derivative works from, decompile, or extract code from our Services; (b) send, store, or transmit viruses or other harmful computer code through or onto our Services; (c) gain or attempt to gain unauthorized access to our Services or systems; (d) interfere with or disrupt the safety, security, confidentiality, integrity, availability, or performance of our Services; (e) create accounts for our Services through unauthorized or automated means; (f) collect information of or about our users in any impermissible or unauthorized manner; (g) sell, resell, rent, or charge for our Services or data obtained from us or our Services in an unauthorized manner; (h) distribute or make our Services available over a network where they could be used by multiple devices at the same time, except as authorized through tools we have expressly provided via our Services; (i) create software or APIs that function substantially the same as our Services and offer them for use by third parties in an unauthorized manner; or (j) misuse any reporting channels, such as by submitting fraudulent or groundless reports or appeals.
Security & Safeguards · Restriction or exception
Account safeguard obligation and prompt breach notification
Users must keep their device and account credentials secure and notify WhatsApp promptly in the event of unauthorized access or a security breach.
Supporting quotations
Keeping Your Account Secure. You are responsible for keeping your device and your WhatsApp account safe and secure, and you must notify us promptly of any unauthorized use or security breach of your account or our Services.
Qualifications & exceptions
User duty to secure account and notify of compromises