WhatsApp vs Telegram vs Facebook vs Signal – What personal data apps collect

Hanno Labuschagne

Hanno Labuschagne

Journalist
Staff member
Joined
Sep 2, 2019
Messages
5,479
Reaction score
3,772
WhatsApp vs Telegram vs Facebook vs Signal – What personal data apps collect

WhatsApp has faced global backlash after publishing an addendum to its privacy policy, which users will be required to accept by 8 February 2021 to continue using the application.

Among the changes to WhatsApp’s terms of service and privacy policy is a clause that allows Facebook to share data from WhatsApp across its other products.

“As part of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information with, this family of companies. We may use the information we receive from them, and they may use the information we share with them, to help operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services and their offerings,” WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy states.
 
The funny thing, this proves no one reads terms and conditions. The reasons that many people are quitting for..... has already been implemented for years only they only now become aware of them now because of the new ultimatum.
 
Can't believe people are reacting like this over WhatsApp. Have any of you switching away from WhatsApp ever even bothered to read the privacy policy of Google, Microsoft, Spotify, or any of the other big tech companies?

I bet most of you are reading this page on Google Chrome with a logged in Google account, have TrueCaller installed on your phone, and use a browser on your phone (also probably Google Chrome) without an ad blocker. Do you have any idea the amount of data those companies collect?

Now you get warm under the collar because of WhatsApp? You have a lot to learn about how the internet works, young grasshoppers.
 
wroemwroem said:
Can't believe people are reacting like this over WhatsApp. Have any of you switching away from WhatsApp ever even bothered to read the privacy policy of Google, Microsoft, Spotify, or any of the other big tech companies?

I bet most of you are reading this page on Google Chrome with a logged in Google account, have TrueCaller installed on your phone, and use a browser on your phone (also probably Google Chrome) without an ad blocker. Do you have any idea the amount of data those companies collect?

Now you get warm under the collar because of WhatsApp? You have a lot to learn about how the internet works, young grasshoppers.
Click to expand...
WhatsApp is Facebook owned. We don't want Facebook.
 
wroemwroem said:
Can't believe people are reacting like this over WhatsApp. Have any of you switching away from WhatsApp ever even bothered to read the privacy policy of Google, Microsoft, Spotify, or any of the other big tech companies?

I bet most of you are reading this page on Google Chrome with a logged in Google account, have TrueCaller installed on your phone, and use a browser on your phone (also probably Google Chrome) without an ad blocker. Do you have any idea the amount of data those companies collect?

Now you get warm under the collar because of WhatsApp? You have a lot to learn about how the internet works, young grasshoppers.
Click to expand...
How do you eat an elephant? Bit by bit...
 
FiestaST said:
View attachment 991666
Click to expand...
There are probably quite a few such comparisons banging around.
I had to do something reasonably similar to share with my non-tech-informed relatives and friends. But I used a document with links to the services websites themselves.

My Signal address book used to have about 5 people in it, now I'm approaching 50 just in the last week. (Compared to about 250 in my WhatsApp contacts list.)
 
Would love to go over the Signal if it wasn't for their baby sized group limit of 150. 300 would be sweet and an improvement over WA.
 
newby_investor said:
There are probably quite a few such comparisons banging around.
I had to do something reasonably similar to share with my non-tech-informed relatives and friends. But I used a document with links to the services websites themselves.

My Signal address book used to have about 5 people in it, now I'm approaching 50 just in the last week. (Compared to about 250 in my WhatsApp contacts list.)
Click to expand...

Would you mind sharing your document?
 
As I have pointed out in another thread, Telegram does share location data with third-party integrators though it is entirely dependent on how the API is set up.

You are also allowed to share your location with other Telegram users. Location services does exist within their ecosystem.

All the above is processed in Telegram's distributed 'cloud' ecosystem. That system can be exploited.

I don't know why all these privacy charts are blatantly ignoring Telegram's Bot. Telegram may say it is encrypted data, but they also state in their FAQ that they can share that data.
 
The facts clearly show -Text GSM messages (SMS) remain the one and only, these WhatsApp,Signal,Telegram and Google RCS etc. are not "ubiquitous" across all networks and will remain like this in the future for a long-term. So what is there to debate about!
 
The day i'm the only person to talk to on Whatsapp is the day i'll move to some other app.
 
I moved to Telegram, and have noticed on average about 5 or so of my contacts moving to Telegram each day since the FB/WA issue caught steam. I think most of those that move, will likely go to Telegram or Signal. However with so many that don't care about privacy or are just unaware, I think it will be difficult to move away completely from WhatsApp.
 
Hamster said:
I don't get people "defending" WhatsApp and not wanting people to move. It's a shitty app. People moving to alternatives is a good thing. Just let it happen.
Click to expand...

People want privacy, then Signal is the best option. People have a choice. The only real privacy provided by Telegram is that which exist within their end-to-end encryption which they market as Secret Chats, and even when you attach media in a Secret Chat which is said to be encrypted it is still stored on their servers.

You can change your own data retention in Telegram, but what is their data retention?

When people want to argue about privacy and permissions, don't be selective. The best trust alternative is Signal.
 
If you want privacy send a letter via post and call your parents instead of whatsapping them.
 
I am just happy this has pushed all my important contacts over to Telegram so I finally removed Whatsapp. I don't mind all these latest privacy stuff but I have been using Telegram for years now and could not get people over even though its much better! Thanks Facebook
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter