WhatsApp is gearing up to roll out end-to-end encrypted cloud backups on iOS. WhatsApp has been testing a lot of new features to enhance the user experience. The feature enables users to safely backup their chats on iCloud and protects them with a password.
Users can check whether the feature is available on your device or not as a beta tester by accessing to WhatsApp Settings tab > Chats > Chat Backup > End-to-end Encrypted Backup. In addition, the messaging app lets users hide their profile pictures from unwanted people added to their contact list.
Currently, Whatsapp features the Option of hiding a user’s profile pictures from everyone, contacts, and nobody. However, WhatsApp may soon include the “My contacts except” Option. The “My contacts except” Option was being tested for the profile pictures, but it would also be expanded to the Last Seen and About Status updates as well.
According to a report, the feature should be rolling out to beta testers who have installed the latest testing versions of WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business, specifically version 2.21.200.14. Users on the beta program might slowly see the feature enabled for them after installing this update.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder, chairman, and CEO of Facebook announced through a post that Whatsapp has completed building end-to-end encrypted backups and will soon begin rolling out the new layer of privacy and security protection to users.
According to a report from Wabetainfo, When a user’s backup is end-to-end encrypted, no one, including social media platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Apple, can see its content because it’s encrypted using a password or a 64-digit encryption key.
Users need to remember that while using encrypted chat backups, users need to remember the password to decrypt their chat backups. The password can contain numeric digits and alphabets between “a” and “f.” However, if users forget their password, the chat can’t get decrypted.
WhatsApp had said that it had become the only large-scale messaging app to offer end-to-end encryption to chat backups. Mark Zuckerberg added to his statement saying, “We’re adding another layer of privacy and security to WhatsApp: an end-to-end encryption option for the backups people choose to store in Google Drive or iCloud.
WhatsApp is the first global messaging service at this scale to offer end-to-end encrypted messaging and backups, and getting there was a tough technical challenge that required an entirely new framework for key storage and cloud storage across operating systems.”