Facebook's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the company is expanding end-to-end encryption on its WhatsApp messaging service.
Texts sent on WhatsApp are already protected so they can only be seen by the sender and recipient. People have been able to back up their messages in the cloud, using Alphabet’s Google Drive and Apple’s icloud. But, while WhatsApp doesn’t have access to those backups, Apple and Google potentially do.
Now, Facebook will allow users to choose to enable end-to-end encryption on their backups as well, meaning neither WhatsApp nor the cloud-service providers will be able to access them.
“We’re adding another layer of privacy and security,” Mr Zuckerberg said in a blog post on Friday. “WhatsApp is the first global messaging service at this scale to offer end-to-end encrypted messaging and backups, and getting there was a really hard technical challenge.”
The move arrives as Facebook faces scrutiny over its privacy polices for the messaging service. Earlier this week, ProPublica published a report highlighting how contract workers sift through millions of private messages that have been flagged by users as potentially abusive.
The non-profit investigative organisation subsequently made clear that WhatsApp doesn’t break the end to end encryption.
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Red Joan
Director: Trevor Nunn
Starring: Judi Dench, Sophie Cookson, Tereza Srbova
Rating: 3/5 stars
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