WhatsApp is a messaging / social media app that is owned by Meta. They currently have over 1 billion users on its platform. Its main draw is its ability to connect people in different countries with voice calls and text messaging. This benefit for people allows them to stay in touch with their family with out the high cost of out of country data plans which can be up to 5 dollars a day.
What does WhatsApp say about your data?
In their privacy policy it can be hard to navigate the legalize to know exactly what they are saying. Here is a quote from their privacy policy page, “your messages are stored on your device and not typically stored on our servers”. This quote perfectly represents the way they use wording to make it seem like they are not storing your data. The key word in this quote is “typically”. This word is used so they can do with your messages as they see fit. They will say they there are an abundance of cases where we don’t store your messages but in this one case they stored the messages. This conforms directly to the use of typically while also being able to use the messages of anyone they want.
They also talk about how they directly share this user information with their other Meta companies, “WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information (see here) with, the other Meta Companies“. This type of information sharing makes it hard to truly know if your data is safe. Once your data get transferred over to those companies now your information is subject to their privacy policy not WhatsApp. Almost all of Metas companies have come under major scrutiny for sharing private user data. In this link to the FTC it talks about how Facebook was directly fined for sharing private data illegally without the knowledge of the User causing them to get fined 5 billion dollars.
How do they use your data to improve their services.
WhatsApp can do anything they want to “improve services” what do they mean when they say they are using it to improve user experience. This most of the time means they are creating a platform that keeps you on the app for a longer period of time. This means creating features such as “stories” so people can share with a community of friends and be more connected. Reasons like this is not entirely bad. But user experience can be such a broad term to describe any portion of the app. This can mean things like advertisements ,which allows them to sell more of your data to give you ads that best suit you.
With all of this presented you can only assume they are not protecting your privacy and concerned about your data and you should take steps to find an alternative which many are doing.
What should you use instead of WhatsApp?
Signal, Signal is an end to end encryption messaging app that does not track any user data. It keeps all data secure that travels between phones. There are no servers to store your data on. It does not use your conversation messages as training data for any other service. Signal is more of a protocol for users to use rather than a company that needs to turn a profit. Since it does not need to turn a profit the user can use it for free without being the product. It employs all the same basic functions as WhatsApp like voice calls and messaging. All you need is a good connection to the internet and your messages can travel freely without the chance of being snooped on.
