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28th Oct 2015

New Study Raises Questions About Whatsapp’s Privacy Settings

We're NOT okay with this.

Cathy Donohue

New research has sparked concerns about Whatsapp and just how much information it stores from your phone.

Researchers from the Univeristy of New Haven in Connecticut and Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic believe their study is the first to research how Whatsapp uses “signalling messages” to make calls.

The Register reports that this study found that the messaging service stores your phone number and details from outgoing calls, keeping the information on its computer system.

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Imagine some reading your Whatsapp thread…PANIC.

Although the information is obtainable, researchers have said that the Whatsapp computer servers are difficult for hackers to gain access to.

The researchers have also stressed that although the Whatsapp servers are heavily protected, users should be aware that the app collects certain “meta data”.

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We can’t deal.

Co-author of the study, Ibrahim Baggili said: “Our research demonstrates the type of data that can be gathered through the forensic study of WhatsApp and provides a path for others to conduct additional studies into the network forensics of messaging apps”.

We might be more careful about what we’re writing/saying when using Whatsapp from now on…