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Then provide useful, technically complete, secure alternatives that are vetted by the government. The expectations of your employees are changing, so the technology you provide should change along.
Generally I'm for stronger data protection, but German officials relationship to WhatsApp is a bit silly, I always wonder what their conrete worry or attack scenario is. That a rouge employee at WhatsApp can see your metadata or access your telefone book? That the US government can see your metadata? Criminal and state actors have access to most of that information anyway.
Just because some criminals or state actors can obtain that information illegally does not mean we should provide that data willingly and legally.
As a side note, I find it strange that you are for stronger data protection and at the same time think it is "silly" to avoid data collection companies such as WhatsApp.
Generally I'm for stronger data protection, but German officials relationship to WhatsApp is a bit silly, I always wonder what their conrete worry or attack scenario is. That a rouge employee at WhatsApp can see your metadata or access your telefone book? That the US government can see your metadata? Criminal and state actors have access to most of that information anyway.
Generally I'm for stronger data protection, but German officials relationship to WhatsApp is a bit silly, I always wonder what their conrete worry or attack scenario is. That a rouge employee at WhatsApp can see your metadata or access your telefone book? That the US government can see your metadata? Criminal and state actors have access to most of that information anyway.
This is from the metadata alone.
But Whatsapp goes further: it also encourages Google Cloud backups. Quite many people enable it. That way, the content becomes accessible to Google.
Other apps like Threema don't have the option of online backups of message content. You can back up some stuff online, but it's only stuff like your list of contacts, stuff that for Whatsapp already resides on the servers. For the content, you must use offline backups.
If they discourage people from using something, they should tell people what is the alternative. I've been user of Signal for years, but with recent changes especially with screen nagging me and everyone else to enter PIN I'm going back to Whatsapp, which was my secondary messenger, but which has most contacts anyway. What are the other options - Messenger, Telegram, Skype or whatever Google kills this year, which ar…
You do realize that user profiles is one of the most requested features, right?
Generally I'm for stronger data protection, but German officials relationship to WhatsApp is a bit silly, I always wonder what their conrete worry or attack scenario is. That a rouge employee at WhatsApp can see your metadata or access your telefone book? That the US government can see your metadata? Criminal and state actors have access to most of that information anyway.
There are laws in place who require German institutions to keep data privacy to a certain standard. This standard cannot be guarantueed when using e.g. Whatsapp.
Of course one could argue the Germans are too paranoid when it comes to privacy – but keep in mind where this comes from: Germany knows first hand what impact state lead data collection can have from it's own history on not one but two occasions (the Nazi-apparatus and the Eastern German STASI surveillance).
This historic backdrop lead to a widespread mindset that one should collect as little data as necessary (search for privacy by design or Datensparsamkeit). This mindset is also enshrined in law.
If you work in an government entity IT-department who is responsible for complying to these laws recommending a messenger which does "something" to your users data (where this "something" can change at any point), is something you could do, but on the other hand you could also just tell them not to use it at all (or to use Signal etc).
Generally I'm for stronger data protection, but German officials relationship to WhatsApp is a bit silly, I always wonder what their conrete worry or attack scenario is. That a rouge employee at WhatsApp can see your metadata or access your telefone book? That the US government can see your metadata? Criminal and state actors have access to most of that information anyway.
This isn't just about the metadata, you would be naive to think so. Proprietary apps, especially those that get automatically updated, will always have this loophole.
[1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/08/facebook_plan...
> "Criminal and state actors have access to most of that information anyway."
You don't have evidence for this and regardless, metadata access can be prevented and it's in a country's best interest to protect its affairs from governments of other countries or from organized crime.
From my experience a lot of people will not hesitate to contact you via WhatsApp even in a professional setting if they can get hold of your phone number. After this happened several times to me I made sure to have a separate phone for business where no messengers or any "social" apps are installed. The funny side of this behavior is your client messaging you via WhatsApp but forgetting their profile picture shows th…
Also, Microsoft sending Cease and Desist letter to the German city-state of Berlin as it wrote a policy advising against Skype (German too): https://www.t-online.de/digital/internet/id_87890600/skype-u...
From my experience a lot of people will not hesitate to contact you via WhatsApp even in a professional setting if they can get hold of your phone number. After this happened several times to me I made sure to have a separate phone for business where no messengers or any "social" apps are installed. The funny side of this behavior is your client messaging you via WhatsApp but forgetting their profile picture shows th…
I’ve never understood the appeal of WhatsApp: it requires a phone number (so it’s useless or hard to setup abroad, and it’s tied to a very personal data), handle very poorly wifi connection (somehow it seems to only update when connected over 4G) and force me to download pictures and videos to see them, trashing my photo folder in the process. It also has no killer features in comparison to any existing messaging app…