How to lock down your privacy in WhatsApp
- WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption (E2EE) ensures that only you and the person you’re chatting with can see your messages.
- To further lock down your data, WhatsApp allows you to disable exporting of chats for everyone in a conversation.
- To do this, tap the three dots (top right) on Android or the header at the top of the chat on iPhone, then select “More” and “Export chat”.
- Once exported, anyone you’re chatting with can also export the chat, so it’s essential to disable this feature for everyone in the conversation.
- Additionally, WhatsApp provides other features to protect your privacy, including media encryption and secure file sharing.
The end-to-end encryption (E2EE) available on the WhatsApp messaging app gets you off to a good start when it comes to privacy and security. It means no one else – hackers, law enforcement, or Meta staff – can see your chats. Your stuff stays just between you and the person or persons you’re chatting with.
On top of that, the app comes with a variety of other features for locking down your data as tightly as possible. Get all of these precautions in place, and you’re as well protected as you can be when it comes to keeping your conversations private.
Stop others from exporting your chats
If you want to export your chat, it’s easy to have it served up in a plain text file, complete with media attached, if requested.
- On Android, tap the three dots (top right) in a chat, then More > Export chat.
- On an iPhone, tap the header at the top of the chat, then Export chat.
The problem is that anyone you’re chatting to can export that chat somewhere else, just like you can. If you’d rather your contacts weren’t exporting your shared conversations, you can disable this for everyone in the chat. (This feature has only just been introduced, so you might not see it yet.)
- Get to the …
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