WhatsApp announced plans to change their privacy policy and begin sharing data with Facebook on 7 January. The announcement led to millions of users deleting the app and instead reverting to platforms such as Signal and Telegram. Due to the significant loss of users, WhatsApp is now postponing the data-sharing change.

The smartphone app advised users that they had until 8 February to accept the update. This has now been paused to clear up misinformation around privacy and security. Instead, the company will encourage people “to review the policy at their own pace before new business options are available on 15 May.”

The change to the deadline of the privacy update may have come too late, as many users switched to encrypted-messaging apps Signal and Telegram. Signal gained 1.2 million downloads and Telegram nearly 1.7 million downloads following the notification of the privacy update.
The proposed privacy policy change announced on 7 January would require all countries outside of Europe and the UK to permit the app to share data with Facebook.

Privacy and security are becoming key considerations for consumers, so with that in mind we review the features of Signal and Telegram.

Signal

An open-source, independent, non-profit, fully encrypted end-to-end messaging platform which keeps your conversations secure. They are funded entirely through grants and donations, with no ties to any major tech companies. The only drawback to Signal, other than its popularity between the people you know, is there is no backup function; if you lose your phone without transferring the Signal data, you will lose all chat history including things like pictures. This is due to security reasons as Signal holds absolutely no data on you, which means they can say with 100% certainty that there is no possibility of a security breach in the coming years.

Telegram

Telegram is a cloud-based mobile and desktop messaging app with a focus on security and speed. However, they only offer optional end-to-end-encryption of your messages, it isn’t there as standard – you have to start a ‘secret chat’. This can only be conducted between two people though, meaning that group chats cannot be encrypted at all. All Telegram messages are encrypted between the user and the Telegram server, but the company could technically view your messages on its server.

The diagram below from Apple, shows the privacy labels and the data that is linked to you:

 

If you would like to discuss any of the above, please contact our team on 01453 700 800.