WhatsApp confirms Google Drive backups are not protected by encryption

WhatsApp has confirmed that once your media and messages leave the app, they are no longer protected by its end-to-end encryption.

This includes Google Drive backups for Android, which the company recently announced would no longer count towards your storage limits.

It gives a similar warning for iCloud backups on iPhones.

The warnings are posted in WhatsApp’s support pages for Google Drive and iPhone backups.

In addition to warning users that its encryption functionality doesn’t extend to cloud backups, WhatsApp said that backups in Google Drive that haven’t been updated for more than a year will be automatically removed from your Google Drive Storage.

“To avoid the loss of any backups, we recommend you manually back up your WhatsApp data before November 12, 2018,” said WhatsApp.

Now read: How much it costs to make a WhatsApp video call