Iran and the United States, historical enemies, both question the safety of the messenger app of Meta, raising new doubts about the reliability of End to End encryption and on the future of digital privacy.
In the last few days, Iranian state television has launched a Appeal to citizens inviting them to uninstall WhatsApp. According to the government, the messaging app would collect information on users to send it to Israel. It is not a new theme, the Iranian government has repeatedly blocked social platforms and messaging apps (in 2022 for example he added WhatsApp and Instagram to the list of prohibited apps following the protests for the death of Mahsa Amini). The problem is that on the other side of the world Something similar is happening.
According to Axios, the Chief Administrative Officer of the United States House of Representatives formally forbidden the use of WhatsApp on government devices. In an internal communication, the staff has been informed that theapp must be uninstalled both in the mobile version and in the desktop version:
“Whatsapp represents a risk for users due to the lack of transparency On the protection of data, the absence of encryption of the archived data and potential security vulnerabilities “, reads the note.” We recommend using other messaging apps “, among these: Microsoft Corp teamsWickr of Amazon.com, Signal, iMessage of Apple and Facetime.
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WhatsApp is currently used by beyond 3 billion people all over the world and, from its purchase by Meta in 2014, has been promoted as one of the messaging services saferthanks to end-to-end encryption (E2E), “which protects personal messages and calls between you and the person you are communicating with”, explained WhatsApp. “Nobody outside the chat, not even WhatsApp, can read them, listen to them or share them.“
There end-to-end encryption It prevents anyone outside the conversation – including companies that manage the platform – to access the content of the messages during their sending. However, Meta and other Tech companies continue to collect metadata, for example contacts or information on the device, which can be shared with the Authority on request.
Meta rejects the accusations, but doubts about privacy grow
Meta denied the Iranian accusations: “We are concerned that these fake news can become a pretext for block our services At a time when people need it more, “explained the meta spokesman in Gizmodo.” We don’t trace your exact position, we do not keep records of the messages received e Let’s not trace the conversations in the app. We do not provide blocking information to any government “.
However, the privacy debate remains on. Destination, in fact, was accused by human rights organizationslike Human Rights Watch, of having limited the pro-Palestinian content on Instagram and Facebook. Not only that, on social networks they were sponsored by the Israeli government propaganda video against Hamas and Iran.
At the moment there is no public tests that governments have had access to the encrypted data of users, but the growing diffidence – which now unites two historical enemies such as Washington and Tehran – raises new questions about future of digital privacy.
