They link to and sync with WhatsApp actively running on a supported primary phone. Engadget called the revamped feature “WhatsApp’s version of an AIM away message” and likened it to Instagram’s and Facebook’s Notes. Prior to the update, the feature was “largely hidden within the apps menus” and difficult to find, with the reason for updating being that WhatsApp wanted the feature to be used more often.
- However, the WhatsApp privacy policy does not apply in the EU, since it violates the principles of GDPR.
- Some devices using dual SIMs may not be compatible with WhatsApp, though there are unofficial workarounds to install the app.
- WhatsApp has increasingly drawn its innovation from competing services, such as a Telegram-inspired web version and features for groups.
- In 2016, WhatsApp was widely praised for the addition of end-to-end encryption and earned a 6 out of 7 points on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s “Secure Messaging Scorecard”.
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WhatsApp was criticized by security researchers and the Electronic Frontier Foundation for using backups that are not covered by end-to-end encryption and allow messages to be accessed by third-parties. In November 2020, UPI payments via WhatsApp were initially restricted to 20 million users, and to 100 million users in April 2022, and became generally available to everyone in August 2022. The application can store encrypted copies of the chat messages onto the SD card, but chat messages are also stored unencrypted in the SQLite database file “msgstore.db”. WhatsApp confirmed the partnership to reporters, but there was no announcement or documentation about the encryption feature on the official website, and further requests for comment were declined. Open Whisper Systems said that they had already incorporated the protocol into the latest WhatsApp client for Android, and that support for other clients, group/media messages, and key verification would be coming soon after. On November 18, 2014, Open Whisper Systems announced a partnership with WhatsApp to provide end-to-end encryption by incorporating the encryption protocol used in Signal into each WhatsApp client platform.
- In June 2023, a feature called WhatsApp Channels was launched which allows content creators, public figures and organizations to send newsletter-like broadcasts to large numbers of users.
- In August 2014, WhatsApp was the most popular messaging app in the world, with more than 600 million users.
- Previously between March 2016 and May 2017, only limited file types categorised as images (JPG, PNG, GIF), videos (MP4, AVI), and documents (CSV, DOC/DOCX, PDF, PPT/PPTX, RTF, TXT, XLS/XLSX), were allowed to be shared for file attachments.
- On October 14, 2021, WhatsApp rolled out end-to-end encryption for backups on Android and iOS.
- They expressed the concern that regular WhatsApp users still could not tell the difference between end-to-end encrypted messages and regular messages.
In April 2017, the perpetrator of the Stockholm truck attack reportedly used WhatsApp to exchange messages with an ISIS supporter shortly before and after the incident. Rudd publicly called for police and intelligence agencies to be given access to WhatsApp and other encrypted messaging services to prevent future terror attacks. However, the company did not reveal the names of the end users, which according to research by Citizen Lab include, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates. In March 2019, WhatsApp released a guide for users who had installed unofficial modified versions of WhatsApp and warned that it may ban those using unofficial clients.
Messenger Duo for WhatsApp
According to WhatsApp, the exploit “targeted at least 100 human-rights defenders, journalists and other members of civil society” among a total of 1,400 users in 20 countries. A Wired report noted the attack was able to inject malware via calls to the targeted phone, even if the user did not answer the call. In 2018, it was reported that around 500,000 National Health Service (NHS) staff used WhatsApp and other instant messaging systems at work and around 29,000 had faced disciplinary action for doing so. At the beginning of 2022, it was revealed that San Diego–based startup Boldend had developed tools to hack WhatsApp’s encryption, gaining access to user data, at some point since the startup’s inception in 2017.
Supported Features
According to WhatsApp, this update was made for the incoming Christmas period for users to inform their contacts on their activities during the holidays. WhatsApp also introduced chat filters, allowing users to sort their chats by All, Unread or Groups. In April 2024, an AI-powered “Smart Assistant” became widely available in WhatsApp, allowing users to ask it questions or have it complete tasks such as generating images. Channels were initially only available to users in Colombia and Singapore, then later Egypt, Chile, Malaysia, Morocco, Ukraine, Kenya and Peru before becoming widely available in September vegas casino apk 2023. In April 2022, WhatsApp announced undated plans to roll out a Communities feature allowing several group chats to exist in a shared space, getting unified notifications and opening up smaller discussion groups.
There were a series of incidents between 2017 and 2020, after which WhatsApp announced changes for Indian users of the platform that labels forwarded messages as such. On April 5, 2016, WhatsApp and Open Whisper Systems announced that they had finished adding end-to-end encryption to “every form of communication” on WhatsApp, and that users could now verify each other’s keys. In November 2017, WhatsApp implemented a feature giving users seven minutes to delete messages sent by mistake.
In April 2017, nearly 300 WhatsApp groups with about 250 members each were reportedly being used to mobilize stone-pelters in Jammu and Kashmir to disrupt security forces’ operations at encounter sites. The messages involved discussing how to make an explosive device and a confession to the attack. In December 2015, it was reported that terrorist organization ISIS had been using WhatsApp to plot the November 2015 Paris attacks. In its revelation via documents received via court, the group claimed that the lawsuit brought against the company by WhatsApp threatened to infringe on its clients’ “national security and foreign policy concerns”.
Security and encryption
WhatsApp uses a “store and forward” mechanism for exchanging messages between two users. Multimedia messages are sent by uploading the image, audio or video to be sent to an HTTP server and then sending a link to the content along with its Base64 encoded thumbnail, if applicable. On November 14, 2016, WhatsApp added video calling for users using Android, iPhone, and Windows Phone devices. WhatsApp automatically compares all the phone numbers from the device’s address book with its central database of WhatsApp users to automatically add contacts to the user’s WhatsApp contact list. The desktop version was first only available to Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone users. WhatsApp Web is accessed through web.whatsapp.com and access is granted after the user scans their personal QR code through their mobile WhatsApp client.
This ability (named multi-device support) began testing in July 2021 and rolled out to all users in April 2023. In September 2024, WhatsApp expanded support for Meta AI, allowing users to send text and photos to Meta AI to ask questions, identify objects, translate text or edit pictures. In June 2023, a feature called WhatsApp Channels was launched which allows content creators, public figures and organizations to send newsletter-like broadcasts to large numbers of users. Now, the feature is also made available to iOS users, allowing them to link up to four iPhones. WhatsApp officially rolled out the Companion mode for Android users, allowing linking up to five Android phones to a single account.
VoiceOver
In May 2025, Meta reported WhatsApp had over 3 billion monthly active users globally. On August 24, 2014, Koum announced on his Twitter account that WhatsApp had over 600 million active users worldwide. The hack, allegedly developed by Israeli surveillance technology firm NSO Group, injected malware onto WhatsApp users’ phones via a remote-exploit bug in the app’s Voice over IP calling functions. An integer overflow bug allowed a malicious user to take full control of the victim’s application once a video call between two WhatsApp users was established.
This new facility, to Koum’s surprise, was used by users to ping “each other with jokey custom statuses like, ‘I woke up late’ or ‘I’m on my way.'” Fishman said, “At some point it sort of became instant messaging”. In June 2009, when the app had been downloaded by only a handful of Fishman’s Russian-speaking friends, Apple launched push technology, allowing users to be pinged even when not using the app. WhatsApp (officially WhatsApp Messenger), owned by Meta Platforms, is an American social media, instant messaging (IM), and Voice over IP (VoIP) service accessible via desktop and mobile app.
Third-party clients
In May 2019, WhatsApp was attacked by hackers who installed spyware on a number of victims’ smartphones. Higher usage was reported by frontline clinical staff to keep up with care needs, even though NHS trust policies do not permit their use. Further, the Cabinet Office had claimed that since many messages were not relevant to the inquiry, it only needed to hand over material it had selected as being relevant. A personal device of the former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, had been compromised by a security breach, and it was claimed that it could not be switched on to recover messages. The researchers notified, Meta (who updated the enumeration problem in October), and deleted their copy of the phone numbers. On November 29, 2021, an FBI document was uncovered by Rolling Stone, revealing that WhatsApp responds to warrants and subpoenas from law enforcement within minutes, providing user metadata to the authorities.
Security and privacy
He also said that the app would not display any third-party ads, and that it would have new features such as the ability to communicate with businesses. In April 2015, Forbes predicted that between 2012 and 2018, the telecommunications industry would lose $386 billion because of “over-the-top” services like WhatsApp and Skype. This would give them some context for why they are important, and that will lead them to pay for more services like this – or so the hope goes. These could be a social networking service like Facebook, a messaging service, maybe search and other things like weather. The idea, he said, is to develop a group of basic internet services that would be free of charge to use – “a 911 for the internet”.
Supports
It was also not available for iOS users on launch, due to limitations from Apple. The web client was not standalone, and required the user’s phone to stay on and connected to the internet. In a later update on November 30, WhatsApp added a Secret Code feature, which allows those who use locked chats to enter a unique password that hides those chats from view when unlocking the app. In October 2023 they also introduced passkey support, where a user can verify their login with on-device biometrics, rather than SMS.
The acquisition was influenced by the data provided by Onavo, Facebook’s research app for monitoring competitors and trending usage of social activities on mobile phones, as well as startups that were performing “unusually well”. The idea started off as an app that would display statuses in a phone’s Contacts menu, showing if a person was at work or on a call. The service was created by WhatsApp Inc. of Mountain View, California, which was acquired by Facebook in February 2014 for approximately US$19.3 billion.
Later on, it also added support for iOS, Nokia Series 40, and Nokia S60 (Symbian). Originally it was required for the primary phone to keep an online connection to WhatsApp for linked devices to work, but now WhatsApp can run on linked devices without such requirement. Linked devices automatically log out after 14 days of inactivity on the primary phone. As of 2025, the software requires at least Android version 5.0 or iOS version 15.1 respectively. Currently, WhatsApp’s principal platforms, which are fully supported, are devices supporting mobile telephony running Android, and iPhones. By default, it is set to disappear in 24 hours, but it can be set for a longer amount of time and can be restricted for viewing by other contacts in the Settings menu.
Both Telegram and Signal in particular were reported to get registration spikes during WhatsApp outages and controversies. In January 2020, WhatsApp reached over 5 billion installs on Google Play Store making it only the second non-Google app to achieve this milestone. According to the Financial Times, WhatsApp “has done to SMS on mobile phones what Skype did to international calling on landlines”. WhatsApp handled ten billion messages per day in August 2012, growing from two billion in April 2012, and one billion the previous October. In 2015, some third-party WhatsApp clients that were reverse-engineering the WhatsApp mobile app, received a cease and desist to stop activities that were violating WhatsApp legal terms. The army recommended that all army personnel use Threema instead, as the service is based in Switzerland.
Once again, the block was lifted following an appeal, after less than 24 hours. On May 2, 2016, mobile providers in Brazil were ordered to block WhatsApp for 72 hours for the service’s second failure to cooperate with criminal court orders. WhatsApp is owned by Meta, whose main social media service Facebook has been blocked in China since 2009. A message that promises to allow access to their WhatsApp friends’ conversations, or their contact lists, has become the most popular hit against anyone who uses the application in Brazil.
Unlike their 32-person group calls, starting a voice chat does not call all group members directly; they instead receive a notification to join the voice chat. Voice calls between two accounts were added to the app in March and April 2015. Edited messages were tagged as “edited” to inform recipients that the content had been modified.