A global press report revealed that a state of panic has spread recently due to some newly apparent problems in the privacy policies of the encrypted messaging application “WhatsApp”.
The report, published on the specialized technical website GSM Arena, indicated that a press investigation cast doubt on the privacy practices of the “WhatsApp” application, and the encryption systems used in the Facebook-owned application.
The report indicated that there was a vulnerability that could cause the data of more than 2 billion users of the WhatsApp application to be exposed.
The report pointed out that despite the adoption of the “WhatsApp” application on the “end-to-end” encryption system since 2016, there are some cases that allow Facebook to view those tweets, in the new privacy policies.
The most prominent of those cases in which Facebook can crack the “WhatsApp” outbreak is when someone reports a message with a violation. Even in a private conversation, the AI algorithm will look for suspicious activity related to terrorism, child abuse, etc., and it will be reviewed, even if the messages are encrypted.
WhatsApp can then either block the user, exclude them, or put them on a watch list.
The report says all of these practices are explained in the users’ privacy policy, but you have to dig deep to find them.
Facebook notes that these practices are based on user feedback, and is sure that users understand the reason and intent of these policies.