WhatsApp adds new privacy tools, including online activity controls and the ability to silently leave group chats

With ongoing concerns about how it can be used to organize criminal activity, WhatsApp has announced some additional privacy features due to its default encryption process, offering users even more security and control in a number of ways.

First off, WhatsApp gives users more control over how others see them on the app, with the option to turn off online activity tags or limit those signals to specific users.

As shown here, you’ll soon be able to decide who can see when you’re online in the app – “Everyone”, “Contacts”, “My Contacts Except” or “Nobody”.

This provides more capacity to avoid unwanted interactions by hiding your active state, which could be of significant value to users who want to conduct their interactions in their own time and place.

WhatsApp also adds a new option to leave groups silently, allowing you to skip a group chat without notifying all group members.

As you can see, group admins still know you left the chat, but there is no “John Doe left the discussion” notification for all users in the thread.

In addition, WhatsApp also extends the window of time for deleting your messages from your chats.

Finally, WhatsApp also blocks screenshots for “View Once” messages:

“Watch once is already an incredibly popular way to share photos or media that doesn’t require a permanent digital record. Now let’s enable screenshot blocking for “View Once” messages for an extra layer of protection. We are testing this feature now and look forward to making it available to users soon.”

That could allow for even more private sharing on WhatsApp, which could lead to even more questionable material being shared. If that’s what people want – although that particular aspect has also been the focus of various authorities in different regions, who have called on Meta to allow authorities some level of messaging access to prevent its apps from being used for illegal activities that are currently shielded by their privacy practices.

Recently the UK National Cyber ​​Security Center publishes a research paper which proposed a new automated scanning process for WhatsApp and other messaging tools that would make it easier to detect illegal exchanges while preserving user privacy. The European Union has also suggested new laws that would make Meta itself more responsible for detecting and reporting such activity on its platforms.

So far, Meta has resisted all calls to add “backdoor” access or anything similar, arguing that the trade-off between all users’ privacy and tracking the small percentage of criminal activity is just too big to consider.

As WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart explained in response to the UK proposal:

“What is being proposed is that we—either directly or indirectly through software—read everyone’s news. I don’t think people want that.”

In fact, Meta is still in the process of rolling out end-to-end encryption across all of its messaging tools, with both Messenger and Instagram Direct getting enhanced security features to bring them in line with WhatsApp.

The next stage will then be to integrate all of its messaging platforms into a single backend to facilitate cross-platform chat — although Meta has delayed full implementation due to ongoing regulatory questions and concerns.

And here there are legitimate concerns. An undeniable side effect of social media’s connecting capacity is that while social platforms and messaging apps allow everyone to “find their tribe,” those tribes aren’t always healthy communities of knitting enthusiasts and TV show fans.

Sometimes these tribes are dangerous, even criminal. And since encryption hides such exchanges from everyone, there’s no telling how significant this could be and what types of activity WhatsApp could facilitate through its circuits.

But as Cathcart notes, the alternative is that all of WhatsApp’s 2 billion active users lose their privacy, due to the actions of a few.

It is a difficult debate that will probably continue for some time.