Is WhatsApp secretly listening to your private conversations? In fact, a case has come to the fore, in which it Recently, concerns have arisen regarding WhatsApp's potential eavesdropping on private conversations. One user claimed that the app had access to their microphone while they were asleep. Twitter's director of engineering, Fod Dabiri, echoed these concerns when he revealed that WhatsApp had been using his microphone in the background while he slept, only discovering this when he woke up at 6 AM.
How the central government will take a stand?
On Wednesday, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar stated that the Indian government will investigate allegations that WhatsApp has access to smartphone users' microphones even when not in use. Despite the drafting of a new Digital Personal Information Protection Bill, the government will probe any alleged privacy violations. In response to Twitter engineer Fod Dabiri's viral tweet, Chandrashekhar denounced the violation and promised to investigate the issue immediately. WhatsApp has been in touch with the engineer for 24 hours and tweeted that they suspect the issue to be a virus on Android that causes incorrect information to appear on privacy dashboards. Google has been contacted to investigate and rectify the situation.
User control over mic settings
The social media platform claimed that users have full control over their microphone settings. According to WhatsApp, "Once permission is granted, the platform only accesses the microphone during a call or while recording a voice note or video. Additionally, conversations and other information are protected by end-to-end encryption, making it impossible for WhatsApp to listen to them." The Twitter engineer shared screenshots of his phone, which showed WhatsApp using the microphone of his device several times while he was asleep.
Many people including Elon Musk expressed concern
Following the release of these screenshots, numerous users, including Twitter and Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk, have expressed apprehension. Musk stated that WhatsApp is not trustworthy. In India, WhatsApp has come under scrutiny for several concerns. In October last year, after the service was down for two hours, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology requested an explanation from the social media platform regarding the cause of the disruption.
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