How Facebook undermines privacy protections for its 2 bn Whatsapp users

WhatsApp assures users that no one can see their messages - but the company has an extensive monitoring operation and regularly shares personal information with prosecutors.

When Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a new “privacy-focused vision” for Facebook in March 2019, he cited the company’s global messaging service, WhatsApp, as a model. Acknowledging that “we don’t currently have a strong reputation for building privacy protective services,” the Facebook CEO wrote that “I believe the future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where people can be confident what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won’t stick around forever. This is the future I hope we will help bring about. We plan to build this the way we’ve developed WhatsApp.”
 

Zuckerberg’s