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Ability to encrypt WhatsApp chat history begins slow global rollout

End-to-end message encryption on WhatsApp has been available on the Facebook-owned platform since 2016 and long may it continue, but now encryption is being added to chat history too.

The rollout of the feature has been teased for some time now, but it is finally being made available globally on iOS and Android devices.

The rollout will not be immediate though, with WhatsApp noting that it wishes to take a slow approach in order to ensure consistency of the feature across the world.

The rollout of the feature was confirmed. by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg earlier this week, as the social media company head looks to get behind some good news involving privacy and a property owned by his firm.

We have checked our devices, but the feature is not available yet locally, so there might still be a wait for South Africans to access it.

When it does become available, users will be able to secure the chat history backups prior to them landing in iCloud or Google Drive, depending on what type of smartphone you’re using. There is no mention of other operating systems, so those with a device running HMS for example, may be out of luck or need to look for a workaround.

Once this feature rolls out across the globe, it should make WhatsApp one of the most secure messaging platforms around. Whether that it enough to win back users who left the platform following the policy change fiasco at the beginning of the year, remains to be seen.

It will also be interesting to see how this feature impacts the recent fines and probes into WhatsApp in terms of data usage.

 

 

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