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Discussions and concerns about how safe the personal data of those of us who use instant messaging applications is, returned to the scene. This time not because of massive system crashes or momentary failures in WhatsApp, but because of the notice and request for acceptance by WhatsApp to its users, of new conditions on its privacy policy.
Read also WhatsApp update will start sharing data with Facebook from February 8
Read also WhatsApp update will start sharing data with Facebook from February 8
The app warned that as of February 8, it will be able to “use Facebook’s hosted services to store and manage its WhatsApp chats” and associate with the social network “to offer product integrations.”
Among the data that the application will now share with Facebook is the user’s phone number, basic profile information, device location, contacts, and shared status. “We can use the information we receive to operate, provide, improve, understand, personalize, support and promote our services,” they said from WhatsApp.
That is, to be able to provide Facebook (who bought WhatsApp in 2014) personal data of the user that companies will require as part of a service. In this regard, from the offices of the messaging application they said “as we announced in October, WhatsApp wants to make it easier for people to make purchases and get help from a company directly on WhatsApp.”
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With these new features, as it always happens with WhatsApp when it falls for a while or changes something in its use, recommendations are beginning to be used to use applications with the same function. Telegram, with almost 500 million users, is the most popular alternative in the West. During the first week of January it exceeded 500 million active monthly users. And after the WhatsApp announcements, it continued to grow at an approximate rate of 25 million new users in three days.
But although behind in popularity, the Signal application is the one that has seen the most growth in recent times. According to estimates by the consulting firm Sensor Tower, Signal added 7.5 million downloads worldwide between January 6 and 10 alone. It is an application that generates a certain level of trust in users due to the little information it asks for to be used.
It is the only application whose only personal information it stores is the phone number, without making any subsequent attempt to obtain more user data. In addition, its parent company, Signal Foundation, in which it developed the end-to-end encryption that WhatsApp and Telegram later adopted.
Although the downloads of these alternative applications to WhatsApp have been growing and have seen a considerable increase in subscriptions in recent days, they are still not close to reaching it in number of users. Telegram, the second most used in the West that recently reached its maximum of 500 million users, is far from fighting on the podium with WhatsApp, which has about 2 billion.
Regarding the security of personal data, specialists from different countries affirm that in these times, even if a user stopped using WhatsApp due to the new privacy conditions, but did not eliminate their Facebook or Instagram accounts, that would not give No guarantee in terms of your computer security, since the three applications are part of the same company that would keep the registration and data of the person in its possession.
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