Expert says don’t ditch WhatsApp
OPT OUT: USERS DON’T HAVE TO GIVE ACCESS TO INFO
Main issues seem to be sharing contact information and specific location data.
You needn’t rush to delete WhatsApp in order to be cyber-safe, accordoing to an expert. South Africans have joined the global bandwagon in migrating to alternative messaging apps following Facebook Inc’s hysteria-inducing update to it’s terms of service.
The department of justice’s information regulator yesterday announced it was studying the new data-sharing terms to see if they complied with the Protection of Private Information Act.
The service updates contained an announcement to WhatsApp users that Facebook would have access to their private information, including location and contacts.
While digital law and cyber security experts recently suggested that the changes were not much more invasive than what users were already exposed to, the global reaction had already led to smaller service providers, such as Telegram and Signal, gaining millions of new users almost overnight.
Telegram yesterday surpassed 500 million users, while Signal scored 7.5 million new users from Thursday to Sunday last week – 43 times more than it had gained for the entire previous week.
Digital law expert Louella Tindale did not make the switch because, on reading the terms, she couldn’t find any immediate threat to her cyber safety.
She said she did not desire to share her information with more companies in a bid to protect her personal information from one.
“It is standard practice for these companies to mention in their privacy notice that they will share your information with other companies,” said Tindale.
The only difference in this case, she noted, was the additional sharing of specific location data, which required users to allow this access, and contact information.
“I think a lot of the concern is around the access to contacts and you can opt out [of both].
“But WhatsApp messages are encrypted end-to-end so they don’t have access to the content of your messages.”