Facebook can read WhatsApp chats after notification by users

In the last few years, the issue of privacy has become more and more important for many people. Users worldwide want to have a choice when processing their personal data and decide independently what to share. Most of them are pretty strict when it comes to communication and use a message service with end-to-end encryption.

We normally assume that messages in WhatsApp, Signal or Threema can only be read and checked by us. But that’s not the case, at least according to a report from Insider. Because Facebook has its own departments that continuously check WhatsApp content and decide whether it is legal and complies with the terms of use.

Before another WhatsApp migration starts here, one important point must be clarified. Facebook does not read by default and messages are still transmitted encrypted from device to device. But if a user reports another person in a group or a private chat, then what has been written is no longer as private as one might think.

Because then an excerpt of the chat history is sent decrypted to Facebook and checked by employees in Austin, Texas, Dublin or Singapore. If the employees then find that there has actually been a violation of their own rules, accounts are deleted and – according to Facebook – users are protected from further abuse.

There is nothing wrong with practice in itself, but it still makes you feel uncomfortable, especially on Facebook. After all, we now know that the group could read messages decrypted, but so far only the user has been the trigger for a review. Nevertheless, the communication does not seem as secure as initially assumed.

Own opinion:

It’s always a tightrope walk when it comes to protecting people online. Facebook could not do anything and simply leave the problem to the user, but harmful accounts would not be deleted from the platform. Either way, business practice reveals that there seem to be gaps in the system that will hopefully not one day be actively exploited by the company itself or the law enforcement authorities.

Via insider