WhatsApp sounds beaten by Apple’s beautiful new iMessage update

WhatsApp, the world’s leading messenger with 2 billion users sending 100 billion messages every day, has made secure messaging popular. But if you’re one of the hundreds of millions who use WhatsApp on an iPhone, you may be in for an unwelcome surprise when you see Apple’s beautiful new iMessage update.

WhatsApp used to be all about security. “Privacy and security are in our DNA,” it says, increasing credit for providing encrypted messaging privacy to the masses. But data security is complicated – look at the spider patterns on the investigator’s desk and you will understand: sometimes it’s not what we say, it’s the case, it’s when, where and who.

“Metadata – data about your data,” says Cyjax CISO Ian Thornton-Trump, “is almost as powerful as the real data. Who you know, to whom you send a message, when and how often. Who knows them and gives a message. What other activity can be traced to your user ID? It is this metadata that drives Facebook’s information mining machine. And that’s why there was such nervousness around its plans for WhatsApp, as it drives money making in all the users and integrates it with its other platforms.

Concerns about WhatsApp metadata collection are not new. Take a look at its privacy policy and you will see the extent of the data it collects. “We use all the information we have to help us operate, deliver, improve, understand, adapt, support and market our services,” it says, adding that “we share your information to help us operate, provide, improve, understand, adapt, support and market our services. ”

And then there’s the Facebook factor. “As part of the Facebook family of businesses,” reads the privacy policy, “WhatsApp receives information from and shares it with this family of companies. We may use the information we receive from them, and they may use the information we share with them to help operate, deliver, improve, understand, adapt, support and market our services and their offerings. ‘

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And while there is no access to your end-to-end encrypted content, your WhatsApp messages are not shared on Facebook for others to see, they are the metadata. “Facebook may use information from us to improve your experiences within their services, such as making suggestions for products (for example from friends or connections or interesting content) and showing relevant offers and advertisements.”

Cue Apple and its campaign to curb Facebook’s insatiable appetite for users’ data. Many of these things were discussed last summer. As my colleague Kate O’Flaherty explained at the time, it’s a real ‘game changer’ for users’ privacy – cutting the tracking IDs and location maps that advertisers rely on. Detecting and cross-referencing browsing and social media activities is one thing, but what you do within the confines of programs is different – there you are a captive audience. And the reason why there is now a message war for users is that these are the toughest apps.

For example, if I can connect you to different applications through your personal identifiers, phone number, or device ID, I can connect your metadata to everything I know. As WhatsApp says, the metadata ‘contains information about your activity … device-specific information … such as hardware model, operating system information, browser information, IP address, mobile network information, including phone number, and device identifiers … We receive information that other people provide us, which may include information about you. For example, when other users you use from us use our services, they may provide your phone number in their mobile address book (just as you provide it), or they may send you a message, send messages to groups to which you belong, or call you. ”

You understand the point. Apple’s amazing response to this undercurrent of metadata collection has been the privacy labels now available in the App Store. “On the app page of each app,” Apple explains, “users can learn about some types of data that an app can collect, and whether the data is linked to it or how to track it.” These labels were released last month and have sparked a rage between Apple and app developers whose data collection practices are now heavily exposed. Facebook led this charge and took full page ads to argue against Apple’s move.

The issue of WhatsApp is that when you claim that security and privacy are in your DNA, you open yourself up to an increased level of investigation. Suddenly, the concern surrounding WhatsApp metadata collection became more real. Now we can easily see that WhatsApp collects the contacts on your phone, commercial data where you use Facebook services, on device-based identifiers, your IP address that provides your location unless you use a VPN, and your usage registers. Everything connected to you.

WhatsApp has issued a statement in response to Apple’s privacy labels. ‘We need to gather information to provide a reliable global communications service,’ he said, ‘as a matter of principle, we restrict the categories of data we collect … we take measures to restrict access to the information. For example, although you can give us access to your contacts to deliver the messages you send, we do not share contact lists with anyone, including Facebook for your own use. ‘

WhatsApp is particularly particular about what Apple sees as a contradiction, telling Axios that ‘labels should be consistent in first- and third-party apps, as well as the strong measures that apps can take to protect people’s private information while keeping people easy Reading information is a good start, we believe it’s important for people to be able to compare these ‘privacy feed’ labels of apps they download with pre-installed apps like iMessage. ”

In a pretty clear example of caution you want, Apple has updated its website and the same level of privacy information for iMessage is now available, providing a great contrast between iMessage and WhatsApp.

And while everyone WhatsApp’s metadata is classified as ‘data associated with you’, the only iMessage metadata associated with a user’s identity is their email address, phone number, device ID and search history. According to Apple, “data linked to you” means that “the data is collected in a way that is linked to your identity, such as your account, your device or your details – to declare that data is collected but not linked to you is not., a developer must use privacy protections, such as to deprive any direct identifiers. ‘

In simple terms, all the additional data that iMessage collects to monitor the platform, and the usage can not be linked to individuals, while everything links with WhatsApp again.

How you feel about the data collection of WhatsApp depends on your personal point of view on the privacy of data. Whatever it may be, think about the changes to WhatsApp, especially regarding business messaging and shopping, as well as tighter integration with Messenger and Instagram – though this is likely to be delayed by the antitrust action against Facebook that has just flared up in the US

WhatsApp is apparently worried that users will not bother to check the privacy label for iMessage as it is pre-installed. I think they should be concerned that users shall do exactly that. And while iMessage is better, it’s nowhere near the leading Signal, which contains only one metadata – your own phone number – and even that “is not linked to your identity.” As for Facebook Messenger – I have repeatedly advised users to switch to an alternative.

Thanks to Apple for these privacy labels, it’s an important step forward against permission abuse, where apps take our data for no good reason. And if you are an Android user, then the situation is much worse. Abuse of permission is much more common in the Android ecosystem, despite the fact that Android 11 has finally started to do something about it.

The security of WhatsApp is adequate for almost all users. But metadata is a gray area and as we do more on these messaging platforms, its value will increase. This is your data and you are entitled to ask why it is collected and processed. If you believe that your data should not be harvested without good reason, you now have the tools to compare the alternatives.