Over the last two years, WhatsApp has been working on a way for different messaging apps to connect to its service, allowing people to chat across apps without compromising its end-to-end encryption, which is crucial for protecting privacy and message security. This is a big step for the Meta-owned app, as it is the first time it is opening up like this, and it could bring more competition to the table.
A decision made more out of necessity than volunteering?
However, this isn’t a complete change decided by WhatsApp alone. In September last year, European lawmakers tagged WhatsApp’s parent company, Meta, along with Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and TikTok as significant gatekeeper companies under the expansive Digital Markets Act.
They gave the gatekeepers six months to open up their closed-off systems to others. With just a few weeks left before that deadline, companies are starting to comply. For instance, Apple has already announced significant changes to its App Store, iOS, and Safari. Now, it is WhatsApp turn to share details of how it might collaborate with other apps.Brouwer, who has experience with Meta’s encryption rollout for its Messenger app, said:
There’s real tension between offering an easy way to offer this interoperability to third parties whilst at the same time preserving the WhatsApp privacy, security, and integrity bar. I think we’re pretty happy with where we’ve landed.
The move towards interoperability will start with letting users send text messages, images, voice messages, videos, and files directly to each other. Essentially, this means you could chat with folks on WhatsApp using other apps like iMessage, Telegram, Google Messages, or Signal, and the other way around, too.
But here’s the catch: it all depends on whether other companies jump on board. There are still worries about how WhatsApp will maintain the safety and encryption of messages when it begins working with other services.
As reported by Wired, WhatsApp prefers that the messaging services it links up with use the same Signal Protocol for encrypting messages. However, Meta is open to apps using different encryption protocols as long as these companies can demonstrate they meet the security standards outlined in WhatsApp’s guidance. Before connecting to WhatsApp, third-party services will need to sign a contract with Meta.
We will have to wait until March to get more details about how exactly the plan will work. Right now, it is still unclear whether these changes will only apply in the EU or if they will roll out globally.
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