WhatsApp, the world’s leading messenger with 2 billion users sending 100 billion messages every day, popularized secure messaging. But if you’re one of the hundreds of millions who use WhatsApp on an iPhone, you’re in for a nasty surprise when you see Apple’s impressive new iMessage update.
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WhatsApp used to be about security. “Privacy and security are in our DNA,” he says, and the fact of delivering the privacy of encrypted messages to the masses must be taken into account. But data security is complex: take a look at spider patterns on a researcher’s desk and you’ll understand: sometimes it doesn’t matter what we say, it’s when, where, and who .
“Metadata: data about your data,” says Ian Thornton-Trump of Cyjax, CISO, is almost as powerful as the real Who do you know, who do you send a message to, when and how often. Who do they know and send messages to? What other activity can be tracked in your user ID. It is this metadata that drives the machine. Facebook’s exploitation of information, which is why there has been such nervousness around its plans for WhatsApp, as it drives the monetization of all those users and integrates it with its other platforms.
Concerns about WhatsApp metadata collection are not new. Take a look at their privacy policy and you will see the scale of data they collect. “We use all of the information we have to help us operate, provide, improve, understand, personalize, support and market our services,” he says, adding that we share your information to help us operate, provide, improve, understand, personalize, support and market our services. “
And there’s also the Facebook factor. “As part of Facebook’s family of companies,” says the privacy policy, “WhatsApp receives information and shares information with this family of companies. We can use the information we receive from them, and they can use the information.” which we share with them to help operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support and market our services and their offerings. “
And while your end-to-end encrypted content can’t be accessed, “your WhatsApp messages won’t be shared on Facebook for others to see,” he confirms, there is this metadata. “Facebook may use our information to enhance your experiences with its services, such as product suggestions (for example, from friends or connections or interesting content) and to display relevant offers and ads.”
Cue Apple and its campaign to curb Facebook’s insatiable appetite for data from its users. Much of this was debated last summer. As my colleague Kate O’Flaherty explained at the time, this is a real “game changer” for user privacy, reducing the tracking identifiers and location mapping that users trust. advertisers. It’s one thing to keep track and cross-reference browsing and activity on social media, but what you do within the confines of apps is different – there’s a captive audience there. And the reason there is now a messaging war for users is that these are the most catchy apps in the world.
If I can link to multiple apps using your personal identifiers, your phone number, or your device ID, for example, I can link your metadata to everything else I know. As WhatsApp says, your metadata “includes information about your business … device-specific information … such as hardware model, operating system information, browser information, IP address, mobile network, including phone number and device identifiers … We receive information that other people provide to us, which may include your information, for example, when other users you know use our services, they may provide you with your own information. phone number from your mobile address book (as you can provide yours) or they can send you a message, send messages to the groups you belong to, or call you. “
You have the point. Apple’s incredible response to this metadata collection subfluence has been its privacy tags, which are now available in the App Store. “On each product’s product page,” Apple explains, “users can learn about some of the types of data an app can collect and whether that data is related to or used to track it.” . These tags were released last month and caused a furor between Apple and app developers, whose data collection practices were now highly exposed. Facebook led the charge, posting full-page ads to argue against Apple’s move.
The problem with WhatsApp is that when you claim that security and privacy are in your DNA, you open yourself to a higher level of examination. Suddenly, these concerns about WhatsApp metadata collection became more real. We could now easily see that WhatsApp collects phone contacts, business data where you use Facebook services, device-based identifiers, your IP address provided by your location unless you use a VPN, and your logs. use. All linked to you.
WhatsApp issued a statement in response to Apple’s privacy tags. “We need to collect information to provide a reliable global communications service,” he said, “as a matter of principle, we minimize the categories of data we collect … we take steps to restrict access to that information. For example, while you can grant us access to your contacts to help you send the messages you send, we do not share contact lists with anyone, including Facebook for your own use. “
WhatsApp was particularly excited by what it considered inconsistent on the part of Apple, and told Axios that “tags should be consistent between first- and third-party apps, as well as reflect the strong steps apps can take to protecting people’s private information, while providing people to read the information is a good start, we believe it is important for people to be able to compare these “privacy nutrition” tags of the applications they download with the pre-installed applications, such as iMessage “.
In a pretty clear example of taking care of what you want, Apple has updated its website and that same level of privacy information for iMessage is now available, presenting an impressive contrast between iMessage and WhatsApp.
Apple application privacy tags
Apple App Store
And while all WhatsApp metadata is classified as “linked data,” the only iMessage metadata linked to a user’s identity is their email address, phone number, device ID, and search history. According to Apple, “linked data” means that “data is collected in a way that is linked to your identity, such as your account, device, or data, to declare that data is collected but not linked. with you”. , a developer must use privacy protections, such as removing direct identifiers “.
In simple terms, all the additional data that iMessage collects to monitor its platform and use cannot be linked to individuals, while with WhatsApp everything is linked.
Your opinion on WhatsApp data collection will depend on your personal view on data privacy. Still, think about the changes that will take place on WhatsApp, especially around business messaging and shopping, as well as closer integration with Messenger and Instagram, though it will likely be delayed by antitrust action against Facebook that just exploded in the United States
According to reports, WhatsApp is concerned that users will not make the effort to check the iMessage privacy tag as it is pre-installed. I think their concern should be users will do exactly that. And while iMessage is better, it doesn’t come close to the class’s leading signal, which has only one metadata element: your own phone number, and even that “isn’t related to your identity.” As for Facebook Messenger: I have repeatedly advised users to switch to an alternative.
Apple application privacy tags
Apple App Store
Congratulations to Apple for these privacy tags, it’s a big step forward against permission abuse, where apps take our data for no good reason. And if you are an Android user, the situation is much worse. Permission abuse is much more prevalent in the Android ecosystem, although Android 11 has finally started to do something about it.
WhatsApp security is perfectly sufficient for almost all users. But metadata is a gray area, and as we do more and more on these messaging platforms, its value will increase. This is your data and you have the right to wonder why it is being collected and processed. If you believe that your data should not be collected for no reason, you now have the tools to compare alternatives.