WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps on both major mobile platforms, iOS, and Android. Facebook, who now owns the said messaging client, has worked a lot in recent years to increase the privacy and security of the app and we have also covered some tips to make WhatsApp more secure for you.
But it looks like WhatsApp’s policies are not as safe as they can be, which was revealed by Electronic Frontier Foundation. The EFF said in a report titled “Who has your back” that WhatsApp policies are too weak to protect users from governments.
“WhatsApp does not explicitly state that it prohibits third-party access to its user data, nor does it say that third parties are prohibited from allowing WhatsApp user data to be used for surveillance purposes,” and “Our reading of WhatsApp’s public-facing policies would not prohibit it from sharing data to be used for surveillance,” the EFF report wrote about the messaging service.
Alongside with WhatsApp, the company prepared reports about many other companies, among them, Adobe, Dropbox, Uber, WordPress, Pinterest and some others did earn good marks and praise for their user privacy centric policy. Two biggest disappointments were Amazon and WhatsApp. both scored poor marks and were deemed not consumer privacy centric.
“This information is a magnet for governments seeking to surveil citizens, journalists, and activists. When governments do so, they need to follow the law, and users are increasingly demanding that companies holding their data enact the toughest policies to protect customer information,” said EFF Activism Director Rainey Reitman.
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