Whatsapp stored my wifes data (lemmy.ml)

submitted 22 hours ago by trilobite@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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What a surprise when i discovered that you don't seem to need to backup Whatsapp messages any more. They apper to be stored on Meta servers. I'm sure it was not like this in the past? My wife left her GrapheneOS phone on the roof of the car and drove off. I managed to recover it but it had been ridden over by i car. So boight another pixel and installed Whatsapp again. She can't live without it as all her clients are on there. When i setup Whatsapp on new phone, all messages appered again, just like that. Spooky ... I think in the past it wasn't like that?

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[-] adespoton@lemmy.ca 10 points 22 hours ago

It wasn’t like that before Meta bought WhatsApp. This is why Signal is the superior app using the protocol; Meta stores not only the conversations, but separately stores the address books and the connection meta data and communication web. The actual messages are at least encrypted, but they’re still sitting there waiting to be accessed by anyone with a key (it doesn’t have to be her key).

[-] voxel@feddit.org 2 points 13 hours ago

https://signal.org/blog/whatsapp-complete/

[-] _deleted_@aussie.zone 4 points 22 hours ago

sitting there waiting to be accessed by anyone with a key (it doesn’t have to be her key)

wait, what!?

[-] Paulemeister@feddit.org 11 points 19 hours ago

Tldr, closed source software can do closed source software things

this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2026

40 points (100.0% liked)

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