To settle the controversy. Is privacy in Signal better than WhatsApp?

WhatsApp made one of the most controversial changes to its privacy policy last weekend, as the new policy gives the app more freedom to integrate with other Facebook apps and allows users to communicate. easily with businesses which also means the app will collect a lot of your data and share it. With Facebook, if you don’t agree to this new policy until February 8, 2021, your account will be deleted.

This change raised concern among some users, and they started looking for other alternatives, and Telegram and Signal have now emerged as the main competitors in the race to replace WhatsApp.

Of course, both apps have their pros and cons, but here we will compare the functionality and privacy policy of Telegram and Signal apps with the WhatsApp app to see how much data these apps collect and how secure it is. :

1- Telegram application:

Telegram is one of the biggest competitors of WhatsApp – even before the latter’s privacy policy update – because the Telegram app – which has nearly 500 million monthly users – supports a lot of features. unique features that make it a more powerful alternative to WhatsApp. One of the best known features of Telegram is that you can avoid giving out your phone number to everyone you communicate with through the app because you can use your username (username) to communicate and add new people.

And if we look at its privacy policy; We will find that it requires your phone number to create an account, and it also accesses your contacts upon registration, on top of that; The app will also be able to access your username and your account photo. If you want to use the two-factor authentication feature using email, the company may collect this data. However, the company claims that the data it collects is not used in advertisements.

But the worst part about the application and few people know it; Does the app not use the feature (end to end encryption) except in secret conversations only, while it uses encryption (client to server) in all other conversations.

This means that anything you send in private and group chats – whether text, images, videos, or files – can be viewed at any time by anyone with access to Telegram’s servers. . In a clearer sense, if an app is hacked, all of that data will be in the hands of the hackers, whereas this is not possible in the WhatsApp and Signal apps.

In addition; The Telegram app also collects your device’s basic data and IP addresses. The only way to make sure that no one is reading your conversations is to use its secret chat feature.

Telegram

2- Signal:

The most important feature of Signal is that it is an open source application managed by Open Whisper Systems, a non-profit organization whose goal is to make private communications accessible to everyone.

The app also supports (end-to-end encryption) for all conversations – as is the case with WhatsApp – meaning that no one can read your conversations or interfere with your calls, even the developer of the. application itself.

Also mentioned in its privacy policy; It only uses your phone number to register and after that it does not know anything about your account, to discover contacts the application sends hashed and encrypted numbers; Contact names or any other information is neither transferred nor stored on the application’s servers.

This is different from the WhatsApp app which accesses your contacts and collects a lot of data related to your account such as: phone number, account photo and your usage patterns – which includes: features you use, groups you joined, how you interact with others in the app, and other information such as: Use status feature – device data, etc. In addition to all this; After updating the privacy policy, the app will share all this data with other Facebook apps.

Signal

Many privacy features

In addition; Signal supports many other privacy features, including: Screen security to prevent app notifications from appearing in your phone’s app switcher, so no one can see your messages on your phone. lock screen. You can also set a PIN code for the account and registration for added security.

Signal allows you to store a backup copy of your messages, photos, files and other content locally on your device in a folder in the Files app, not in the cloud storage service or in the Google Drive service because WhatsApp works. .

Also, when you turn on the backup function in the app, your data is encrypted with a 30-digit password, and you will need this code to restore the backup, so you should keep it in a safe place.

Due to these security restrictions; Signal allows backups on iOS to be transferred via P2P (peer-to-peer) only, and on Android, you can transfer them manually.

The end result is:

WhatsApp’s new privacy policy says the app will collect a lot of your data and share it with the Facebook app – which does not have a good history of handling user data – in order to improve ad targeting.

Regarding the alternatives; The Telegram app collects less data, but it doesn’t support the feature (end-to-end encryption) in conversations and groups, which makes the app insecure, especially if you use it to transfer messages. sensitive data.

Based on all of this; Signal is the most secure app because it supports the end-to-end encryption function for all your conversations and also supports many security and privacy features that allow you to protect your data, followed by the WhatsApp application, then Telegram application.