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WhatsApp is making a massive change to the way it saves your contacts (www.theverge.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (20 children)

I don't think so. Metadata is unencrypted (i.e. your contacts, who sends messages to whom and how often and when).
Messages itself are encrypted.

Am I wrong?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (10 children)

That is what the article is explaining. The contact names and details are encrypted.

https://engineering.fb.com/2024/10/22/security/ipls-privacy-preserving-storage-for-your-whatsapp-contacts/

Perhaps the call times are exposed but it seems it would be difficult or impossible for them to connect this with a human identity.

Use Signal if you have concerns about WhatsApp.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (9 children)

Thanks.

That is what the article is explaining.

The planned improvements are a good thing. I thought we talked about the status right/ until now.

Also: What does it mean then Meta (the company) isn't eager to collect this data (anymore)? This doesn't fit my world view of this company.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Meta acquired WhatsApp and somehow hasn’t messed it up yet. WhatsApp has always been fairly good with privacy and doesn’t share much with other Meta apps as far as I’m aware.