Does user privacy when using WhatsApp Web (https://web.whatsapp.com) differ substantially from using WhatsApp on Android? WhatsApp on Android has end-to-end encryption and (optional) encrypted backups. If I use WhatsApp Web, will Meta be able to see the contents of my WhatsApp messages?
You must log in or register to comment.
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn’t great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don’t promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
Chat rooms
-
[Matrix/Element]Dead
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
- 0 users online
- 57 users / day
- 383 users / week
- 1.5K users / month
- 5.7K users / 6 months
- 1 subscriber
- 2.86K Posts
- 71.9K Comments
- Modlog
As others have said both options are inferior to Signal because you can’t verify the privacy claims Meta makes.
However I’d argue that WhatsApp Web is slightly better, because it being a web app means Meta can collect less data about you compared to a phone app.
for anyone not aware, if you’re using the web based version of anything on a corporate/company device, assume all traffic can be intercepted by your admins. it’s very easy to do and considered a requirement on some fields.
Meta still controls all the code running in the web app. They may be scraping your messages just like they have the option on Android.
It can still be end to end encrypted with them sending themselves a copy from the unencrypted text boxes you see
He refers to the fact that the web app does not have default access to your device sensors, microphone, storage, etc.