Stop Using WhatsApp If You Care About Your Privacy
Privacy has always been a key feature and a popular argument for the WhatsApp messaging app. Co-founder Yang Kum grew up in the Soviet Union under strict government oversight and pledged to protect user data after Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014. Now that Qom is leaving , it might be time to ditch WhatsApp before then. The promise goes away with him.
According to The New York Times , as detailed by an anonymous Facebook executive, Kuma was “increasingly worried” about Facebook’s focus on collecting and selling user data. He tried to fight back where possible, but felt that Facebook’s board of directors “verbally expressed the privacy and security concerns it expressed.”
A WhatsApp engineer also told the Times that without Qom, the rest of the team fears Facebook might change the app to track even more data – and perhaps even drop ads in the app someday.
In a statement to Lifehacker WhatsApp, Facebook remains committed to ensuring the privacy and security of the app’s 1.5 billion monthly users , as well as useful end-to-end encryption settings for the app. The company also pointed to Mark Zuckerberg’s recent F8 keynote speech , in which he called Qom “a tireless advocate for privacy and encryption” and thanked him for helping make Facebook “the largest fully encrypted communications network in the world.”
However, WhatsApp said it could not comment on the future of the service when it comes to increasing data collection or advertising. This is a sensible stance, given that the company doesn’t want to make a promise now and look terrible if it moves in a different direction in a few years, but silence is unlikely to make privacy advocates jump for joy.
Facebook is already collecting some data from WhatsApp. Without Qom at the helm, perhaps this could increase – a move that wouldn’t be uncharacteristic for a social network given that the company’s entire business model relies on targeted ads for personal data.
If you care enough about your privacy to uninstall Facebook (or even change the way you use social media), you can also opt out of WhatsApp. If you need a new, more secure messaging app, try Signal or even iMessage for communication between Apple devices.