Elon Musk grabbed everyone’s attention by tweeting “use signal”. People who had no clue about the existence of the Signal, after this tweet, started installing the app. This came as a threat to WhatsApp. There was discussion all over the world and people started questioning the security and privacy policy of WhatsApp after Signal claimed that it has the best security.
Let us go through the privacy policy of both apps to get to the conclusion.
Privacy policy of Signal
According to the privacy policy of signal, it uses state-of-the-art security which is the highest level of general development as of device or technique. And provides end-to-end encryption for private messaging, internet calling, and other services.
Nobody can access Signal messages and calls. They are strict with their policy. Signal collects and processes the messages as a data controller. It is designed in such a way that it will never collect any private or sensitive information from its client. Signal does not sell or monetize client’s personal data in any way. It can not decrypt your messages or calls. You are safe with sharing your personal valuable documents. The content shared will not be visible to the third party in any way.
According to the terms and policies of signal, if you violate the terms of signal then your account will be disabled and you will not be able to create a new account on it.
The minimum age to join the signal is 13. You need to register your phone number while creating an account. Phone number helps in providing signal services to the clients and other users. You can manage your personal information in signal application settings.
Privacy policy of WhatsApp
There is a tag line of WhatsApp “ your privacy is our priority”. Such as Signal, In WhatsApp too, messages are end-to-end encrypted. They do not store the messages once the message is delivered. No one can read or listen to the chat, not even WhatsApp. Messages are stored in the user,s device and WhatsApp claims that it does not share it with advertisers. It gives you total rights to control your privacy. You can use two-step verification to ensure extra security while creating an account. Also, you can choose whether you can be added to the group or not or who can add you.
You can enable touch-id, face-id, or android fingerprint lock to ensure your security. You can change your last seen options, you can turn off the read recipient option, change your status privacy, and can control who can see your profile photo. WhatsApp provides you more options to keep your account secured. This app shares some of your information with its partner company that is Facebook to show the relevant ads and make new suggestions. But nothing including your photos, messages you share on WhatsApp will be shared with Facebook or anything you share on Facebook will be shared with WhatsApp. They do not allow third-parties ads on WhatsApp.
WhatsApp has introduced news to use it. Now you can add a payment method to it. All the business-related information such as transaction, appointment, delivery, shipping, and more can be added. This will totally depend on you if you want to enjoy these services of WhatsApp or not.
WhatsApp VS Signal
From the reviews on Signal, we can draw a conclusion that Signal is more secure than WhatsApp. It also has the feature of disappearing messages, which makes it much more secure. Signal has the ‘Sealed Sender’ feature, which keeps the third party and other malicious elements away, making them unable to figure out who is sending or receiving the messages.
Conclusion
Whatsapp and Signal both almost serve the same feature. They both are easy and flexible to use. The owner of WhatsApp is the same person who owns Facebook. Hence, there were several rumors and questions about its privacy policy. But WhatsApp declined them all. They both are secure and safe. You can use both. Go ahead with your terms and choice.