In the summer of 2016, WhatsApp made an unprecedented change. The Meta-owned company turned on end-to-end encryption by default for all of the billion-plus people using it—becoming, in the process, the world's largest encrypted messenger. Since then, that number has topped 2 billion.
Being end-to-end encrypted by default means nobody at Meta can read, or mine data from, the content of the messages you send. All texts, photos, videos, voice messages, documents, status updates, and calls are encrypted on WhatsApp, and only the people you send them to can access them. Devices decoding encrypted content must verify and exchange security codes as messages are transferred.
The encryption that WhatsApp uses was originally developed by Open Whisper Systems, the group behind the encrypted messaging app rival Signal. In recent years, WhatsApp has introduced additional privacy and security features you can turn on. But even though WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption does protect your communications, that doesn’t mean the service is as private as it could be by default. In fact, when it comes to WhatsApp versus Signal, we recommend the latter for people wanting the maximum security and privacy options.
However, with more than a third of the world using WhatsApp, its popularity is unrivaled, and you may not be able to drag all of your friends, family, and groups across to Signal. If that milestone is still some way off, here are some tips to make WhatsApp as private as possible.
Updated May 2023: WhatsApp has introduced new privacy features since this story was first published in 2020. These changes are reflected below.
WhatsApp can collect a lot more information about you than you might think. Much of what it collects is similar to many other apps and can be found in its privacy policies. There are separate privacy policies for the US, Europe, and the UK. There are some differences in what WhatsApp collects, based on Europe’s privacy rules. But the app is also part of Meta’s machine, which also includes Facebook and Instagram, and some information is shared with the parent company. The association alone can put people off using WhatsApp.
The data WhatsApp has about you can come from multiple different sources: the information you provide (such as your phone number to sign up, or your location when you give it permission to share it with a friend), information that is collected automatically (for instance, when you’re online, or when you made a phone call), and information that others share about you (if a friend uploads your phone number, for example).
Automatically collected, WhatsApp says, is information about how you use its services, how often and for how long you are on WhatsApp, and the features you use—including “group name, group picture, group description,” your profile photo, “about information,” and when you were last online. (Some of this information is used for safety features.) On top of that, WhatsApp may also collect information about your phone’s battery level, signal strength, and mobile operator.