Can WhatsApp or Mark Zuckerberg hear your discussions with mom, buddy, or husband? Officially, no. However, a Twitter engineer recently raised concerns. “WhatsApp can’t be trusted,” Elon Musk tweeted, quoting the engineer.
Twitter engineer’s tweet gets hundreds of retweets, likes, and comments. The Indian government and Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Rajeev Chandrasekhar announced they will investigate.
Chandrasekhar tweeted, “this is an unacceptable breach and violation of #Privacy,” quoting Twitter developer Foad Dabiri. Even while the new Digital Personal Data protection statute #DPDP is being prepared, we will swiftly investigate and act on any privacy violations.”
WhatsApp, according to Elon Musk, is unreliable.
Dabiri tweeted that WhatsApp used his Pixel phone’s microphone as he slept. Since I got up at 6AM, WhatsApp has been utilizing the microphone in the background. “What’s up?” he tweeted. His Pixel 7 Pro did this.
WhatsApp apologized but blamed Android when the tweet went viral. WhatsApp says Android is to blame. It reiterated that all platform communications and calls are end-to-end encrypted, so no one can hear or read them.
“Over the last 24 hours we’ve been in touch with a Twitter engineer who tweeted a problem with his Pixel phone and WhatsApp. “We believe this is a bug on Android that mis-attributes information in their Privacy Dashboard and have asked Google to investigate and remediate,” WhatsApp said in a statement.
WhatsApp added that users can enable or disable WhatsApp’s mic use. “Users have complete mic control.” “Once granted permission, WhatsApp only accesses the mic when a user is making a call or recording a voice note or video – and even then, these communications are protected by end-to-end encryption so WhatsApp cannot hear them,” the firm claimed in its next tweet.
Google is investigating this Android problem. End-to-end encryption prevents us from hearing the microphone during your calls and voice notes. “We’re aligned on privacy,” stated Meta’s Director, Public Policy India, Shivnath Thukral.
If you’re concerned about privacy, deactivate WhatsApp’s microphone access in your phone’s settings. Go to Settings, Privacy, Permission Manager, Microphone, and reject WhatsApp permission. Disable microphone permission for apps that request it.