The privacy and security of your personal messagingWe can't see your personal messages or hear your calls, and neither can Facebook: Neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can read your messages or hear your calls with your friends, family, and co-workers on WhatsApp. Whatever you share, it stays between you.
Introduction
Greeting Friend!
Can WhatsApp read all your messages?
Will WhatsApp give your data to Facebook?
There has been a lot of discussion on this issue on social media, in news bulletins and there have been a lot of misunderstandings as well, in my opinion.
So, Let's get to know about WhatsApp privacy policy in detail in this Article and how it will impact you and how you can secure your privacy regardless of this policy.
So, a lot of you must have noticed and received a new notification of the new WhatsApp privacy policy with an "agree" option at the end of the page. Apart from "agree", there is no other option here. You cannot disagree with this policy. Even if you ignore this notification it will keep popping unless you agree otherwise, post 8th February, WhatsApp will not let you use its app unless you accept its privacy policy or stop using WhatsApp.
So, what is the in WhatsApp's new privacy policy and why are people feeling so concerned?
The biggest thing is that WhatsApp is openly saying to you that it will share some of your data with Facebook Companies. What are these Facebook , Facebook Messenger and Instagram! Basically, all those companies which are owned by Facebook. But this isn't anything new. WhatsApp has been doing is previously as well. But there is a big difference . According to the WhatsApp privacy policy of June 2020, you could opt out of it.
But in the new privacy policy, you do not have an option either you will agree to it or you can stop using WhatsApp.
The second biggest thing: what is the data that will be shared with Facebook?
Can it read all your messages?
A few people will say whatever you are writing on messages, the links you share, all this information will be shared with Facebook and Facebook will be able to read all your messages. But this is wrong viewers. WhatsApp will remain End-to-End encrypted.
In short, End-to-End encryption means that when you send a message apart from you and the receiver, no one will know of the contents of the message i.e what has been written in this message. No third party will get t know what message you have typed. Infact WhatsApp itself will not know what message you have typed. End-to-End encryption will remain in WhatsApp even now. it's not going anywhere so you don't need to be worry that a third person will read your messages or your messages will not be read by Facebook. Infact even after the implementation of the current privacy policy, WhatsApp is a better messaging service as compared to Facebook Messenger or Instagram Messenger. Because Facebook and Instagram messages do not have any End-to End encryption. i.e if Facebook and Instagram want they can see the contents of your messages. What you are writing to your friends on Facebook messenger and Instagram messenger, Facebook and Instagram can read this. They do say that they do not read anyone's message but if they want they can read them.
Business Model of Facebook
You might have noticed friends that if you message your friend on Facebook messenger that you want a certain t-shirt, you might have seen the next day how t-shirt ads appear on Facebook. This is how their system works. Whatever messages you sent to someone, keywords are picked from there and you are shown targeted ads accordingly.
if you tell someone that you to buy a new playstation then you will start seeing playstation ads. This is Facebook's and Instagram's business model. They basically sell ads to advertisers. They say, we have data of so many people and we know what this person likes, what this person messages to another person on this day, what this person needs. So, advertisers can come and we will this person ads of the products that you want to sell. So, the question that arises here is that how will WhatsApp help this business model of Facebook? Because WhatsApp chat is End-to-End encrypted, so there contents of the messages can't be read So, by what means Facebook will be benefited from the data it receives from WhatsApp? Here, we come back to the original question: what data is being send Facebook from WhatsApp?
List of Gone Data
This data is actually almost everything that WhatsApp can extract from your phone other than your messages. for example, the type of mobile phone, the operating system, the battery life, signal strength, time zone, IP address so that your approximate location can be known, your profile picture, status on WhatsApp, name you are using on WhatsApp, content details, their names, phone numbers and profile pictures. All this data will be given to Facebook now. Now you can imagine the rest of the data which entails this list how useful it will be for Facebook to sell the advertisers.
A lot of people are especially mad about WhatsApp because when Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014, it gave an assurance that they will try to collect minimal data. 'We consider privacy a right and we will respect everyone's privacy. We will not show ads on our platform.'
Although WhatsApp has said that they will not show any ads but they have changed the wordings in the new privacy policy. it says that if they show any ads then they will definitely let people know in the future. Because of the wording change, it seems that WhatsApp will also feature ads in the coming future and it's not surprising a lot because if you recall, when Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014, it spent $22 Billion. If spent so much money and if you look at it from a pure business perspective then they had to recover this money from one place or another. what other way is there to recover the money from WhatsApp other than taking user data and selling it to advertisers? No other business model can be seen here if you look at it from the aspect of Facebook.
Problem of WhatsApp Business
The third most dangerous thing that WhatsApp has included in its privacy policy is that WhatsApp will not only share your data with Facebook but also with any third party or company associated with Facebook or using its services. That data can end up with them as well. The End-to-End encryption that I talked about works fine when you chat with your friend but if you are chatting with a WhatsApp Business account then it will not work. this is because you will be able to view the message and the business account will be able to view it. There could be lots of people behind that WhatsApp Business account inter company could be there So, they can use your messages for their own benefit. Basically any third party or any other company has a business account on WhatsApp and if you chat with them they can even take your message history and use your message content for their own benefit and This is something that can open a Pandora's box. Grave possibilities come into the picture.
Pandora's Box
Consider that you gave your sensitive data to a third party through a business account such as your bank account details and if that company goes through a data leak then that data leak will be public and all your account information all your sensitive data will be compromised. If there is a data leak of any company in the entire world and if that company was operating a lots of business account then your data is under danger. The second example you can take is of Cambridge Analytica. Say a company like that comes up in the future that uses your sensitive data in a political campaigns i.e to politically brainwash you, something which was done by Cambridge Analytica.
Your data can be taken from WhatsApp business account or through Facebook such that it was done by Cambridge Analytica. to force you, show you a fake news. You should be exploited for all these things. Like I told you, possibilities are endless due to the new privacy policy. Infact if the government wants to target you then that to will become easy because of the new privacy policy.
Govt Spying
Jitin Jain
Cybersecurity Expert Jitin Jain as said that the government can easily carry out surveillance because what WhatsApp did till now was that they denied all data. Whenever the government asked WhatsApp for any information then WhatsApp used to say that 'we do not have any data because we do not collect any data.
Therefore we cannot give you any data but now if the government asks that give me such and such data then WhatsApp cannot say that we do not have any data. Here, the privacy policy itself mentioned that WhatsApp will collect this data. So, that data can be given to the government with much ease. So, what are solution you have? One option is to stop using WhatsApp altogether and start using an alternative app such as Signal or Telegram.
Solution on WhatsApp
In my opinion this is the best option. I will talk more about this later but before that I would like to talk about second option. All those People who still want to use WhatsApp, how can you do it while protecting your privacy to the maximum.
To do this, let's recall this list of the data WhatsApp is collecting from you and let's get rid of them one by one.
Firstly, what you can do is write nothing in your about section. Don't put any status on WhatsApp. Don't put up any profile picture on WhatsApp and don't write your real name too. Write a different name altogether. By doing this, WhatsApp will not have your profile picture, your status or about information or your real name. After this, WhatsApp can see what mobile device you are using, your time zone, your signal strength and your battery life. In my opinion, these are not very important things. Everyone has some phone and some battery life even if WhatsApp has this data, nothing is being lost. But there is one critical thing here and that is IP address. Through the IP address, WhatsApp can determine your location, you can hide your IP address by using VPN.
So, whenever you use WhatsApp, switch on the VPN So, that WhatsApp will never be able to know your exact location. There are lot of available in market.
By doing this, your IP address will be hidden. what is left is the WhatsApp business loophole. Here I advise that you do not chat with any business account on WhatsApp. If any company that messages on WhatsApp, do not chat with them. Use it only for personal communication. So, if you are careful about all these points then can use WhatsApp while safeguarding your privacy to the maximum.
Solution: Signal &Telegram
But what I said earlier, the best option is to leave WhatsApp and start using Signal or Telegram. Signal has been made by non-profit. so, it will never happen that the app says that because 'we want to earn more money so we will display this ads on platform.' Because the people that have made this app have no interest in money. This app does not collect absolutely any of your data.
The second option is the Telegram app. I personally like it because the person who made the Telegram app is Pavel Durov has shown time and again that he will not genuflect in front of any government. Telegram app has special anti-censorship features which where used in the Belarus protest when there were protests against their dictator. The Telegram app supported the protestors in open. The same thing was seen Hong Kong protest as well. The Telegram app showed its full support against the dictator. Probably because the creator of the Telegram app have been openly opposing the Russian dictatorship.
Privacy on Europe
It will also seem shocking to you as well is that WhatsApp's new privacy policy is entirely different for people living in Europe. for European users, WhatsApp will not give data to Facebook at all and this is only because there is strong data protection law in Europe; GDPR(General Data Protection Regulation). This tells us that in this entire situation, how important laws made by the government to protect the privacy of the public.
We should pressurise the Indian government as well to make a strong data protection law.
I hope you find this article informative, if you like it share it with the maximum of people so this information reaches your friend and family.
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