WhatsApp is Secretly Listening to Your Conversations, Elon Musk Reveals

For some time now, WhatsApp has added several security-related features to the instant messaging app. The company has also said on several occasions that they focus on ensuring that WhatsApp is secure and safe for everybody. Truly, the app now has a lot of security features. End-to-end encryption, two factor authentication, chat lock, just to mention a few. All these features ensure that the privacy of users is always safe.

However, a new report seems to say otherwise, and this is raising a lot of concerns. It all started from a twitter engineer by name Foad Dabiri. According to a recent screenshot Dabiri has shared on Twitter, the messaging app used his phone's microphone whenever he was asleep. This post on Twitter has raised many concerns about the safety of our privacy on WhatsApp.

Elon Musk Response to Dabiri's Tweet About WhatsApp Privacy Concerns

Instantly, this Tweet got the attention of a lot of users which includes the CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk. In reacting to the tweet, Musk made a statement by saying “WhatsApp cannot be trusted”. Musk's tweet also attracted several others including WhatsApp who came with a response. In their response on Twitter, WhatsApp claim that it is a bug on android. They further stated that they have already spoken to google about it and asked them to fix it.

The content of Dabiri's tweet which came together with a screenshot reads: “WhatsApp has been using the microphone in the background, while I was asleep and since I woke up at 6AM (and that's just a part of the timeline!) What's going on?” Checkout the tweet together with Musk's reaction below.

WhatsApp cannot be trusted https://t.co/3gdNxZOLLy

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2023

In response to this tweet, WhatsApp also tweeted the following: “Over the last 24 hours we've been in touch with a Twitter engineer who posted an issue with his Pixel phone and WhatsApp. We believe this is a bug on Android that mis-attributes information in their Privacy Dashboard. And we have asked Google to investigate and remediate.”

They further explained that WhatsApp gives users control over their microphone settings. Hence, the messaging app cannot access the mic without the users' approval.

“Users have full control over their mic settings. Once granted permission, WhatsApp only accesses the mic when a user is making a call or recording a voice note or video. Even then, these communications are protected by end-to-end encryption so WhatsApp cannot hear them.”

WhatsApp Privacy Concerns, Users' Response to a Tweet from Elon Musk

Musk tweeted his response on May 9. Since then, the tweet has over 50 million users viewing it. Many have also shared their thoughts on this. Few of the response are as follows.

“It's incredible how many people don't realize that WhatsApp is owned by Meta/Facebook.” “Maybe they just want to improve the quality of snoring idk.” “Twitter encrypted DMs has entered the chat,” wrote a third. “I have denied WhatsApp accessing the microphone in my phone settings. But it still found a way to penetrate the access button in the background. Even if I deny the access, it keeps on collecting the background data. Quite weird! What is happening?” These are few of the many reactions to the tweet.

Via: gizchina.com