Islamic Ethics of Privacy in Cyber Social Networks: with an Emphasis on WhatsApp

Entering cyber social networks particularly mobile-based social networks, for example, WhatsApp has accompanied with some damages, and one of these damages is threatening user's privacy. In this kind of systems, user's privacy exposes to threat from three directions: from other users, from the network's managers, and from governments. This paper, with an analytical, descriptive method and referencing to original religious scriptures, derives ethical principles related to 'privacy,' such as obtaining permission, being camouflage for, keeping secrets, not prying, the reflection principle and avoiding oppression, avoiding theft and keeping away from harassing others. It applies these principles to data latent in the virtual environment. It concludes that governments facing two ethical principles of ensuring user's security and protecting their privacy must lay the ground for protecting user's privacy -to the possible extent- by promoting ethical principles and by establishing national networks, and avoid using their information against them.