WhatsApp has become one of the largest social messaging apps; it promises end-to-end encryption and much more for users. However,
WhatsApp has gained a lot of attention lately from passing user data to Facebook for ads’ purposes, and spam threats show themselves.
WhatsApp likes to announce its safety and security in the news, yet it often passes by the weak points and threats it will face daily.
When users install WhatsApp on smartphones, it asks you to approve requested permissions, such as confirming your phone number and importing existing contacts.
Users are already jumping ship because of the latest debacle, yet it is safe to provide so much access to personal information to one app? (Read Can You Use WhatsApp in China)
Cybersecurity experts’ debate, Is WhatsApp safe? The app’s security and privacy features warn it could make phones easy targets for hackers and handle all your data to Facebook, which also faces its own security issues.
You can learn all you need about how secure the WhatsApp messaging app is, and ultimately, should you be using WhatsApp or changing your messaging app like other ex-WhatsApp users.
What’s WhatsApp?
WhatsApp is a mobile and messaging app that is free to use and owned by Facebook. Rather than using the cellular network, WhatsApp uses a Wi-Fi connection to send encrypted videos, voice calls, and text messages to any other users anywhere in the world.
The app started in 2009, yet it jumped into the mainstream when it became Facebook-owned in 2014. You will discover WhatsApp is the world’s most popular messaging app and has over 2 billion users worldwide. (Learn How To Recover Deleted Photos From Samsung)
How Does WhatsApp Work?
Once you download the WhatsApp app and confirm your phone number, you can text and call anyone anywhere in the world without any data charges. Besides this, the WhatsApp chat app promises several security features, including encryption and privacy settings when using WhatsApp. (Read Is WhatsApp Safe To Send Pictures)
Encryption
WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption for all communications. The encryption makes it impossible to decrypt messages and stop third parties and even WhatsApp from accessing your messages or calls.
Only you and the other person or group you are communicating with can read or see messages, photos, or files you send.
Privacy
Besides the encryption, WhatsApp allows users to customize privacy settings. Here you can change the visibility status to others. However, not everything carried out inside the app is private.
WhatsApp “collects and shares information about how you use the service. You can discover this includes sharing information with Facebook.
To find out what information is collected, you can review the WhatsApp privacy policy as it has changed, and it is these that are causing the uproar in WhatsApp reviews.
Users don’t know that should these apps be on your phone; someone could spy on you.
Is WhatsApp Totally Safe?
WhatsApp isn’t as safe as the company made out. Using end-to-end encryption makes WhatsApp far more secure than other messaging apps; however, no app is 100% safe to use.
Bad people target WhatsApp. Besides, it accesses all your contacts and also tracks where and how long you use the app for. All this leaves your privacy and personal information at risk. Here are some reasons you can find as to why users are ditching the app.
In May 2019, it came to light hackers found they could infect phones with spyware. All they needed to do was call victims through WhatsApp. WhatsApp fixed the bug at the time, but criminals continually search for new app vulnerabilities and bugs to exploit.
To stop this, WhatsApp will gather and store user data of how you communicate with your contacts or others using the services.
The time, frequency and duration of interactions are recorded according to the privacy policy. It is possible for the app WhatsApp to even share data with police or authorities.
Since no app is ever safe, users should safeguard phones and protect personal information. Apps should be kept up to date and privacy settings set to the max.
Some thought over what data sharing of content you should do as this can be risky. (Learn How To Delete An Instagram Post)
Is a WhatsApp Conversation Private?
WhatsApp’s end-to-end encrypted feature is there to share communication such as messages, files, and calls, and be sure they are private to be viewed by you and the person you’re communicating with can read what’s sent.
Some people shouldn’t be trusted. As soon as something has been sent in a digital format, there is nothing to stop the recipient from taking screenshots or recording what you sent on a separate device.
Chats with family should be safe, yet you’ve no idea of their intention if you are not too familiar with the other person.
Is WhatsApp Safe for Storing Conversations?
When it comes to users’ privacy and security on WhatsApp, you can find they are stored on the device, not the WhatsApp servers or in the cloud.
Although should messages not be delivered, they are held on a WhatsApp cloud server and removed once delivered. Delivered messages are stored on a device forever or until deleted manually. Undelivered messages will be deleted after 30 days.
Can You Delete WhatsApp Conversations?
If you look at the newest version of the WhatsApp app, it enables users to remove messages from friends and family from their device along with the recipient’s chat within an hour of sending a message.
To delete a WhatsApp message.
- Tap and hold the message,
- Tap ‘Delete,’ and then select ‘Delete for Me’ or ‘Delete for Everyone.’
- It is possible to turn on the self-destruct timer feature. You can make your conversations disappear after seven days. Once such messages are deleted, you cannot recover them.
Remember, the recipients can take screenshots or record your conversation on another device before you delete it.
Once you understand the level at which is WhatsApp secure, you should do more to protect yourself online. Where possible, use two-step verification on your phone, and then one of the best ways to help with privacy is to use a VPN. (Find the Best VPN Providers in Australia
With these, you can easily change your location, so any WhatsApp’s activities will appear to be in a different location. A VPN also helps prevent malware from finding its way on your phone and making you invisible to hackers.
A VPN uses military-grade encryption. All your communications can be sent with this on top of WhatsApp’s encryption, making your WhatsApp communication tougher to hack, if not impossible.
