The year 2021 is turning to be a troublesome year for chat messaging application WhatsApp. In the first two weeks, WhatApp faced agitation from all corners of the world, regarding privacy policy updation notified by them. Now WhatsApp has issued a public notice announcing a stay in implementing new privacy norms until May this year. Yet troubles don’t seem to be ending soon for Whatsapp.
As per Rajshekhar Rajahariaa, an ethical hacker & internet security researcher, WhatsApp has compromised user anonymity by allowing search engines like google to crawl and index user contact number including their messages.
15 Jan 2021, If you are using @WhatsApp Web, your Mobile Number and Messages are being index by @Google again. Don’t know why WhatsApp is still not monitoring their website and google. This is 3rd time.#Infosec #Privacy #infosecurity #GDPR #Whatsapp #Privacy #Policy #Google pic.twitter.com/D6o1emxDgv
— Rajshekhar Rajaharia (@rajaharia) January 15, 2021
For those finding it difficult to understand the complication that such indexes can cause to their privacy. This simply means scammers from anywhere in the world could get to know your WhatsApp number and whether or not the user is using WhatsApp web.
A few days ago, similar claims were made by Rajshekhar in which he alleged WhatsApp for letting google index links of Whatsapp groups which are supposed to be a users private space. We tried contacting WhatsApp India for their byte, their response is awaited.
We tried to establish if there is any real substance in his claims but we couldn’t verify, we checked many numbers who historically use Whatsapp web and found none of them was indexed on google. However, numbers from those screenshots presented by Rajshekhar in his claims are still available on google. Addition to this we couldn’t find personal messages indexed on google.
Support IndianSpectator by subscribing to our Daily Newsletters, Submit your opinion/articles on Info.indianspectator@gmail.com. Read more about Tech.
