A new investigation questions Facebook’s privacy policies

Yashika Gupta

Sep 05,2024
1 min read
5
765 Views

ProPublica’s new investigation calls into question Facebook's privacy practices and the encryption of its WhatsApp messaging platform. This article highlights several key findings that are not explicitly revealed to the $ 2 billion user base. Although WhatsApp has offered end-to-end encryption since 2016, there are certain circumstances in which 1,000 vendors using special Facebook software can read messages sent from one user to another.

For example, when someone reports a message, even in a private chat, the AI algorithm looks for suspicious activity related to terrorism, child abuse, etc. It then passes the reported message, along with four previous messages, to the real person for assessment. The user can then be either blocked, rejected or included in the watch list.

Unencrypted messages from users in the "proactive" list can be read along with other user data such as user groups, phone number, unique phone ID, status message, battery level and signal strength. The report states that all of these practices are described in the users' privacy policy, but you need to find them in more depth. Facebook notes that these practices are based on user feedback and that they are confident that users understand what follows the report.

In a nutshell, WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption may not be as waterproof as you can trust with constant on-screen pop-ups.