WhatsApp seems to be going all out to reach users and clear what it terms as ‘confusion’ about its new privacy policy. Just a few days after the Facebook-owned company announced that it is moving back the date on which people will be asked to review and accept the new policy terms. WhatsApp has now launched an official account on its Status platform within the mobile messaging app and it has put its ‘privacy principles’ as a status message. The aim is clear: To highlight that nothing is changing for individual users and their chats will continue to be as secure as earlier.
WhatsApp Android users noted that on 27 January, WhatsApp published four images to its own account on the Status platform, which functions similarly to Instagram’s stories and comprises time-limited updates shared with contacts. The Status update seems to be viewable by all Android users and includes a reminder of WhatsApp’s commitment to user privacy. The update also included an announcement that WhatsApp will let users know about new features and application updates through its Status platform.
“WhatsApp is now on Status!” WhatsApp said. “We’ll let you about new features and updates here. One thing that isn’t new is our commitment to your privacy.” The company reminded users of the end-to-end encryption it offers, which means user conversations cannot be accessed by Facebook or WhatsApp. “WhatsApp can’t read or listen to your personal conversations as they’re end-to-end encrypted,” WhatsApp said. At the time of writing, there does not seem to be a way to opt-out of receiving WhatsApp Status updates.
The four-part WhatsApp Status update sent to Android users is shown below.
End-to-end encryption
The encrypted nature of WhatsApp chats means they are inaccessible and indecipherable by anyone other than the recipient. This technology is based on the open-source Signal protocol, which is the same encryption used by the Signal messaging app. WhatsApp users have reportedly flocked to other messaging applications following the app’s controversial privacy policy update, which has since been delayed due to global backlash.
It is important to note, however, that while many users have switched to either Telegram or Signal , this messaging app does not have end-to-end encryption enabled by default. This means that unless you manually start a “secret chat”, which uses Telegram’s own proprietary encryption protocol, your messages could be visible to Telegram itself and can be accessed by others if they are intercepted.
