Will WhatsApp and Facebook exchange sensitive data?

A few days ago, news broke about the decision by WhatsApp staff to make the application completely free.
The annual fee for using the very popular instant messaging application has indeed been abolished.
On the company’s official blog, it has been reiterated once again that, despite being free, advertising will not be conveyed in any form or manner; rather, they are working on new business models that can facilitate interaction between companies and users of the service.
However, in recent hours, it has been revealed that there will likely be further updates in the short term.
According to recent leaks, it seems that an Android developer has “discovered” a new option within the beta version 2.12.413.
This new feature would allow WhatsApp to share certain sensitive data and information with the social media giant.
A leaked screenshot online indeed highlights an option where you can decide to share the active account information on WhatsApp with Facebook, specifying that the operation is aimed at improving the Facebook user experience.
It should be noted that the move does not appear to be particularly “invasive” or coercive, as it is an optional setting: to actually activate this data sharing, the user will have to give their consent by ticking the corresponding checkbox.
Therefore, if the final version of the Android update remains the same as the aforementioned beta, there would not be automatic data sharing, but the sharing would need to be specifically activated.

At the time of writing, as this is a leak and still a version in the testing phase, it is not known if and how it will actually come into effect.
It is also unknown what the ultimate use of the exchanged data will be, and what information, more specifically, will begin to be conveyed between the two applications.
Everything is still at an extremely embryonic stage, it is important to specify.
It could also simply be an idea that will not be implemented, perhaps in view of further new potential monetization fields following the abolition of the annual subscription fee for WhatsApp.