Yes I know, Talking about WhatsApp and privacy will make more than one person’s hair stand on end, since the general opinion is that Meta’s instant messaging service is not remotely the best option for those users who are truly concerned that their data and conversations do not end up in the hands of third parties. And let’s be honest, WhatsApp didn’t take this issue too seriously for a long time, and as for Meta… well, its privacy record can be clearly improved.
However, it would be unfair to deny that for some time now it seems that someone has made the decision that it was necessary to put the batteries in this sense, and start offering features and more features that allow users to better protect their data and conversations. This does not make WhatsApp the best option for those who prioritize privacy, but it does make its use more secure for those who, for whatever reason, want or should opt for this service.
It is true that, since privacy is not the epicenter of the service, there are other alternatives that have already had the functions that we are seeing debut more recently in WhatsApp for a long time, to which we can, using the proverb, replicate with a “A good time, green sleeves” or with a “It is never too late if happiness is good”, depending on the value that we give, in time and form, to these novelties.
We recently told you, for example, that self-destructing groups are already on the way, a function that WhatsApp is already testing in its beta versions, but has not yet reached final versions. And before this happened, we now know from WABetaInfo, that WhatsApp prepares to offer the possibility of protecting conversations with a passworda measure that many (among which I include myself) will consider especially wise.
According to the data in said article, once a conversation is protected, it can only be accessed using either the password or the biometric identification system defined in the device, but in addition to this, blocking the chats it also ensures that the media and files we receive are not automatically saved on the device, even when we have configured WhatsApp so that it does act in this way with the rest of the conversations.
There is, at the moment, no scheduled date (at least public) for the arrival of both this function and that of the self-destructing groups, but if Meta is in a hurry, we can affirm that WhatsApp will soon have won many points in terms of Privacy.
