WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the world. According to Statista, equally of July 2019, 1.6 billion people were using the messaging platform every calendar month. And thankfully, all those people are using one of the well-nigh secure and individual messaging platforms on the planet.

Allow's hope that continues to exist truthful. With WhatsApp's founders having left Facebook under begrudging terms and Facebook's upcoming rebranding of WhatsApp, along with its plans to merge information technology with the messaging platforms of Instagram and Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp is headed into an era of change. Mark Zuckerberg says that Facebook'south entire suite of services will become more privacy-centric. But I'm not optimistic, considering Facebook is essentially an antiprivacy company.

That being said, in recent conversations with family and friends, young and sometime, new and longtime users, I've discovered that many WhatsApp users aren't getting the maximum privacy out of the app that they could be getting today. That includes protections that keep your WhatsApp activity out of sight from other users, Facebook itself, and bad actors. Here's a guide to how to have advantage of all the privacy measures the service offers.

Protect your privacy from other users

It only makes sense that nosotros use WhatsApp to share information with our friends. It is a communications platform, later on all. Even so, by default WhatsApp is set to share more of your information with your friends and other users than y'all probably realize.

When y'all bring together WhatsApp you're given the option to upload a profile picture and change the "Hey in that location! I'm using WhatsApp" Nearly text to a more than personalized message. Many people change this to include their occupation, website, other social media handles, the university they go to, or city they alive in.

All this information is available to anyone who messages you on WhatsApp–even people you lot don't know. This could go out some users vulnerable. For example, if you lot give your WhatsApp contact info out to a stranger yous've just met on a dating app, that person could use such data to stem you, especially if your About text lists where you lot work or live.

That's why you should make sure the permissions options for who can see your contour photograph and About bio are not set up to "Everyone" and are instead set to "Nobody" or only "My Contacts." You can practise this by going into WhatApp'due south settings and tapping on Account>Privacy>Contour Photo and Account>Privacy>About.

WhatsApp also offers a feature chosen "Condition" that allows you to share a photo or text as a status update. By default, all of your WhatsApp contacts can run into these status updates—be they your friends or your boss. While your friends may observe it funny that you're planning on getting bombed off your rocket this Tuesday nighttime, you boss may find it worrisome, because you're leading a presentation with a big customer the next morn.

For this reason, it'due south a good idea to be selective with who tin see your Condition updates. In WhatsApp's settings, go to Account>Privacy>Status and alter it from "My Contacts" to either "My Contacts Except" or "Only Share With." The first selection lets you exclude sure people from seeing your condition updates. The second ane allows yous to give merely a select few of your contacts the ability to see them. More often than not, "Only Share With" is the safer selection equally it will automatically exclude any new WhatsApp contacts yous've added since you concluding changed these settings.

Finally, don't permit people—yes, even your friends—stalk you via WhatsApp. This is like shooting fish in a barrel for them to do if yous keep two options on their default settings. Nether Account>Privacy the "Last Seen" selection is fix to "Everyone" by default. This means anyone you're contacts with on WhatsApp tin see when you were last using the app. If you're telling your boss you're hard at piece of work on the written report that'due south due in but a few hours simply he opens his WhatsApp and sees you were just online two minutes agone, the game is up. Also, if you don't feel like replying to friends' messages right away—and wait hours or days to do and then—they could clearly see you're ignoring them because they'll be able to tell the concluding time you opened the app.

And speaking of your friends being able to tell when you've final used the app, disable Read Receipts by going to Account>Privacy and toggling the switch to off. Trust me, you'll feel liberated when you do this.

Go on more activity private from Facebook

Yeah, yeah, Facebook claims it's non doing anything nefarious with the data WhatsApp tin admission near you when you give it certain system-level access permissions on your phone. But it's perfectly reasonable to remain skeptical. That's why information technology'southward best to make sure y'all limit WhatsApp's power to access your data outside of the app.

In both iOS and Android, you adjust WhatsApp's permissions in the phone'due south Settings app. I recommend turning off access to your location, photos, contacts, calendars, microphone, and camera.

A word of warning: Doing this volition vastly limit what you tin can practice in WhatsApp other than sending text messages—you won't be able to make vocalism or video calls. But keeping these settings set to disallow access to these privacy-disquisitional information points means Facebook can't practise anything backside your back with that data. If you're privacy-conscious, whenever you exercise want to share your location via WhatsApp or want to send a photograph or make a telephone call using the app, but then should yous manually change the setting to allow admission—and every bit soon every bit you lot're done, change the setting back to disallow admission to that data.

Oh, and a note about blocking WhatsApp's access to your Contacts. Facebook doesn't want you to do this. The company wants to know who you know, from your friends to your bosses to your doctors. And if you always disallow WhatsApp access to your Contacts, Facebook will strip your power to run across the names of your WhatsApp contacts in the app, fifty-fifty though the app could easily still show you the name of each contact since every WhatsApp user sets a user proper name (usually their ain) when they join the app. This is i of the most manipulative things Facebook does with WhatsApp. Merely the company knows the badgerer of only seeing a user'south phone number is enough to force people to mitt over their Contacts data.

Keeping your WhatsApp business relationship secure from nosy friends and bad actors

Finally, you'll desire to brand certain you use WhatsApp's maximum security settings, and so no 1 can admission your messages—fifty-fifty if they have access to your phone.

First, you lot'll want to enable two-step verification. You practice this in WhatsApp'south settings by going to Business relationship>Two-Step Verification. With this enabled, you lot'll need to enter a Pivot when registering your phone number with WhatsApp over again. This ensures bad guys who take spoofed your number won't be able to log into your WhatsApp account on their phone and see all your messages without that Pivot.

Next, if you utilise an iPhone, y'all'll desire to add together an extra layer of biometric security to the WhatsApp app itself. To do this, in WhatsApp'due south settings become to Account>Privacy>Screen Lock. In iOS, toggle the "Require Face ID" or "Require Touch ID" switch to ON and choose how presently you desire to require this authentication for opening the app again after endmost it. Requiring this authentication to launch the app again ways you can safely permit friends employ your telephone knowing that they won't exist able to launch WhatsApp and read all your letters. (This characteristic is not yet available on Android unless you're using the newest beta.)

Finally, y'all should disable cloud backups of your WhatsApp messages. Setting WhatsApp to back up your messages to online cloud services such every bit Apple'south iCloud is useful in that it gives you a way to retrieve those letters on a new device if your old ane is ever lost or stolen.

However, when yous back up your WhatsApp messages to services like iCloud, your normally stop-to-stop encrypted WhatsApp messages are stored in an unencrypted format, giving anyone who can admission your deject account, such equally hackers, the ability to read every WhatsApp message y'all've always sent. WhatsApp fifty-fifty explicitly warns users of this gamble in the app. If that'south too much risk for you, the best thing is to disable deject backup. On an iPhone, get to Chats>Chat Backup>Auto Backup and set this pick to Off. On an Android telephone, go to Chats>Conversation Fill-in and make sure "Support to Google Drive" is set to "Never."