We share joys and sorrows with each other via chat apps such as WhatsApp, assuming that this can be done safely. How do those apps actually ensure that your privacy is guaranteed?
Since the takeover of WhatsApp by Facebook in 2014, the discussion about privacy has flared up regularly. People switched to competitors like Signal and Telegram, although WhatsApp is still the largest. How secure are your conversations with these apps?
Hackers
In any case, the concerns are not about possible hacking of your chat history. Due to the protections used, you do not have to worry that a hacker or another service will read your messages. WhatsApp uses so-called end-to-end encryption, just like its competitors.
End-to-end encryption ensures that only you and the recipient can read the messages sent. Sending a WhatsApp message feels very easy, but there is a fairly complicated system behind it. Your app first goes to a server, to be sent from there to your intended recipient.
End-to-end encrypts your message as soon as you send it, so no one can read it on its way to the server. Only you and the recipient have the key for the lock. It will be applied automatically when your message arrives on the recipient’s account. So you don’t have to enter a special code for it.
Metadata
Even WhatsApp itself cannot read your messages. That is usually not what the discussion is about. The privacy sensitivity comes into the picture with the metadata, in other words: data that is about your data.
It’s not about the content of the messages themselves, but things like the time of sending, where you were when you sent it or how often you chat with certain contacts. Facebook (or now: Meta) will get all that data and the company can use it, for example, to serve you personalized advertisements.
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Signal and Telegram
At competitor Signal, that metadata is also encrypted and then not stored by Signal itself. The company is not commercial and exists by the grace of donations. There is therefore no revenue model associated with the storage or use of your data. In addition, Signal is ‘open source’, which means that the code of the app is public. Technically minded people can therefore see for themselves whether Signal keeps these promises, or whether something is still secretly happening behind the scenes.
Telegram is also ‘open source’, but offers a lot less security than Signal and even WhatsApp. Conversations are not automatically encrypted, so the user has to choose a secret chat himself. This can only be used in private conversations and not for whole group chats. Experts also criticize the way of encryption and that the methods of other apps are more secure.
Change?
So there are certainly valid reasons for wanting to get rid of WhatsApp, but whether they weigh heavy enough for you, you will have to decide for yourself. The big disadvantage is that Telegram and certainly Signal have a lot fewer users. WhatsApp has about 2 billion users, Telegram has about 500 million and Signal had about 40 million at the beginning of this year.
You can then switch yourself, but everyone you want to chat with must of course have the same app. You would then have to convince all your friends to go to a particular app as well. Because WhatsApp is firmly the market leader in the Netherlands, that could be a difficult task.
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