End-to-end encrypted backups announced by WhatsApp for privacy, security

End-to-end encrypted backups announced by WhatsApp for privacy, security

This will be released as an optional feature and in the coming weeks, WhatsApp will be rolling this out to iOS and Android users.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, has completed building end-to-end encrypted backups and will soon start rolling out this extra layer of privacy and security protections to users, the company has announced.

With end-to-end encrypted backups, there will be no other messaging service at WhatsApp's scale that will provide this level of security for people's messages.

In a statement the company said, "We are announcing this now to provide the broader technical community with our approach before it's available to our beta testers and eventually everyday users." "In the coming weeks, we will be adding end-to-end encrypted backups as an additional layer of security for those who want it," the company said.

In the event someone chooses to back up their chat history with end-to-end encryption, it will be accessible only to them, and no one will be able to unlock their backup, not even WhatsApp.

The company said, "This is a really big privacy advancement, particularly at our scale of more than 2 billion users who send more than 100 billion messages a day." "We believe that this will give our users a meaningful advancement in the safety of their personal messages," it added.

This will be released as an optional feature and in the coming weeks, it will be rolled out to iOS and Android users. WhatsApp is reportedly working on other privacy features too.

A recent report said that WhatsApp will soon let users hide their online status from anyone who can't be trusted.

The report said that currently there are no customisable options with 'Last Seen', 'Profile Picture' and 'About' either bing able to be seen by everyone, contacts, or no one at all.