A strange little symbol appears for a few seconds in certain WhatsApp conversations before disappearing. It is in your best interest to monitor it because it indicates important information about the confidentiality of your exchanges…
WhatsApp is renowned for the security it offers its users, especially with end-to-end encryption in place since 2016. This means that no one other than the recipients – not even Meta – can read the contents of the messages. messages you send. This provides an excellent level of protection, while maintaining email accessibility – there’s nothing special to configure to take advantage of encryption. In short, you can discuss the most sensitive and intimate subjects without worrying about prying eyes falling on them! But, before long, WhatsApp will welcome your discussions from other messaging services.
Indeed, among the many measures imposed on digital companies by the Digital Markets Act (DMA) – which has just come into force – we find interoperability. Thus, in the same way that we can chat with a correspondent using a different telephone operator, we will soon be able to exchange messages with any other user, regardless of the messaging services used (WhatsApp, Signal, Messenger, Telegram or iMessage).
For those who fear for the security of their discussions, Meta aims to be reassuring and ensures that end-to-end encryption remains “as far as possible”. But the company is also considering cases where the protocol it uses – called Signal – is not used by other messaging services. She thus admits that this system does not offer the same level of security and privacy protection as that offered natively by the application, given that each messaging system uses its own data obfuscation mechanism. Meta would like all other services to use the same encryption protocol as Signal – also used by Google Messages and Skype – although the firm is not closed to other options, provided that these applications can prove that they meet the security standards desired by WhatsApp.
Also, to reassure everyone, WhatsApp now includes a symbol in the shape of a small padlock, which may arouse astonishment at first glance. It is available for only a handful of users, in a beta version of the Android application, as discovered by the specialized site WABetaInfo. This symbol is found, in a conversation, under the name of the contact or group, in place of the status. It is followed by the words “End-to-end encrypted”. Please note, it only remains displayed for a few seconds, before being replaced by the usual status – “online” for example.
This symbol allows you to know at a glance whether the current chat is end-to-end encrypted with the Signal protocol, and therefore to be sure that no third party can read the messages or listen to your conversations. Of course, your chats were already end-to-end encrypted. This symbol is simply a visual reminder, perfectly understandable for the less tech-savvy among us. This makes users a little more aware of the security measures put in place by WhatsApp and makes them aware of the efforts that are made at this level.