The European Union has recently reached an agreement on a significant competition reform known as the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which will impose strict rules on large tech companies that will have to offer users the ability to communicate with each other using different apps. WhatsApp is one of the companies that will be required to comply with the new regulations outlined in the European Union’s Digital Markets Act. This is because WhatsApp is considered a gatekeeper service since it’s a large tech platform with a substantial user base and falls within the criteria set by the DMA. With the latest WhatsApp beta for Android 2.23.19.8 update, which is available on the Google Play Store, we discovered that WhatsApp is working on complying with the new regulations:
As you can see in this screenshot, WhatsApp is working on a new section dedicated to the new regulations. Since it is still in development, this section is still not ready, it appears empty and it’s not accessible to users, but its title confirms to us that they are now working on it. WhatsApp has a 6-month period to align the app with the new European regulations to provide its interoperability service in the European Union. At the moment, it remains unclear whether this feature will also eventually extend to countries beyond the European Union.
Interoperability will allow other people to contact users on WhatsApp even if they don’t have a WhatsApp account. For example, someone from the Signal app could send a message to a WhatsApp user, even without a WhatsApp account. While this broader network can definitely enhance communication with those people who use different messaging apps and assist those small apps in competing within the messaging app industry, we acknowledge that this approach may also raise important considerations about end-to-end encryption when receiving a message from users who don’t use WhatsApp. In this context, as this feature is still in its early stages of development, detailed technical information about this process on WhatsApp as a gatekeeper is currently very limited, but we can confirm that end-to-end encryption will have to be preserved in interoperable messaging systems. In addition, as mentioned in Article 7 of the regulations, it appears that users may have the option to opt out when it will be available in the future.
Third-party chat support is under development and it will be available in a future update of the app. As always, we will share a new article when we have further information regarding this feature.
Meta knows that a valid number exists, and at most that your number is a part of that social circle. It doesn’t know anything about you just yet. If the association between public number and person is public, your problem is beyond whatsapp, of course. Also, I give you a bad news, but all meta applications request access to contacts. If your contact has your number (to contact you), meta already has your number, possibly very conveniently associated with your name, as this is out of your control.
I think interoperability is a net positive, even privacy wise. Mostly because if we level the playing field and remove the network effect, people who care a little might as well use “better” apps, where “better” stops being “all my friends are there”.
that might be, but just being into someones phone book is not giving away much, the pattern starts to get interesting when they can track who is actually making contact, when, in what application and so on. that’s the meta data goldmine.
The point is that if you can refuse to communicate with WhatsApp users, they have no more data compared to when your interlocutor simply added your phone to their contact list. They only have more data if you actually carry out conversations, which you are not forced to do.