Another messaging app, Telegram, has also experienced an uptick in downloads, but Signal has been topping the charts on the Apple and Android app stores. Signal, a secure messaging app recommended by authorities such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Edward Snowden, has been the main beneficiary of the WhatsApp exodus. Why are people choosing Signal over Telegram? This appears to have stalled owing to technical and regulatory difficulties around encryption, but it’s still the long-term plan. Yet only a few years later, Facebook announced aims to integrate the messaging systems of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. When Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014, it pledged to keep the two services separate. “The more data they profile, the more they put people in vulnerable positions at risk.”Īnd the social network isn’t known for keeping promises. She cites the example of Facebook’s “people you may know” algorithm exposing sex workers’ real names to their clients – despite both parties taking care to set up fake identities. Its practices can put vulnerable people at risk, says Emily Overton, a data protection expert and managing director of RMGirl. This can be shared with “Facebook companies”.įacebook’s highly criticised data collection ethos has eroded trust in the social network. The messaging app doesn’t gather the content of your chats, but it does collect the metadata attached to them – such as the sender, the time a message was sent and who it was sent to. WhatsApp has stated that in the UK and EU the update does not share further data with Facebook – because of strict privacy regulation, known as the general update to data protection regulation (GDPR).
WhatsApp does share some data with Facebook, including phone numbers and profile name, but this has been happening for years. The more data they profile, the more they put people in vulnerable positions at risk The BBC reported that Signal was downloaded 246,000 times worldwide in the week before WhatsApp announced the change on 4 January, and 8.8m times the week after.
The bungled communication attempts have raised awareness that WhatsApp does collect a lot of data, and some of this could be shared with Facebook.
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