- Twitter Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk took a swipe on Facebook’s sister platform WhatsApp over privacy infringement
- The Meta-owned app user accused the platform of recording him secretly while asleep between 4:20 am and 6:53 am
- WhatsApp said the issue could be due to a bug on Android, but Twitter users could not buy the response saying most apps secretly record users’ data
Facebook’s sister company WhatsApp has been slammed for secretly recording users on the background.
Twitter boss Elon Musk took a swipe at the Mark Zuckerberg-owned platform, saying it cannot be trusted.
WhatsApp privacy
This followed a tweet by a WhatsApp user claiming that the application recorded him secretly while asleep between 4:20 am and 6:53 am.
WhatsApp had earlier responded to the user, saying it was an issue to do with a bug on Android, and has conducted Google to investigate.
“Over the last 24 hours, we’ve been in touch with a Twitter engineer who posted an issue with his Pixel phone and WhatsApp.
“We believe this is a bug on Android that mids-attributes information in their Privacy Dashboard and have asked Google to investigate and remediate,” WhatsApp said in response to the user.
However, several users reiterated that the issue has been persistent with WhatsApp and other social platforms.
@ExplainThisBob wrote;
“WhatsApp is a messaging app, but you can not trust it to keep your information safe.”
@NFTHabib said;
“It is very under-reported. But the fact that I can talk about something and see ads for it soon after means WhatsApp is not the only thing recording and selling our voice data.”
Some argued that despite denying the messaging app access to the microphone, it ends up finding a way to record them.
But the company denied this, saying users have full control of their mic settings and permissions granted to WhatsApp when making a call or voice note.
According to Daily Mail, WhatsApp’s response to the Twitter post suggested that Google’s Privacy Dashboard is to blame for the issue.
WhatsApp oppose online safety bill
This came as WhatsApp warned that the new Online Safety Bill by the UK government will infringe on users’ privacy.
In a letter on Monday, April 17, the platform said that the bill requires technology firms to break end-to-end encryption on private messaging services.
The messaging app argued that should the bill be passed into law, billions of people around the world will be exposed.
