WhatsApp recently ran an online privacy quiz, asking Malaysians how much they care about the privacy of their messages with friends and family. While 7 out of 10 Malaysians think of themselves as private people who would ensure that their chats are end-to-end encrypted, only 3 out of 10 said that they actively enable privacy features on messaging platforms.
Malaysians are also selectively vigilant when it comes to being safe online: 8 in 10 Malaysians block and report messages offering freebies from an unknown number, but only 3 out of 10 Malaysians leave immediately if strangers added them to an unwanted group chat.
More than 2 billion people around the world use WhatsApp to stay in touch with friends and family. In Malaysia, people use it every day, multiple times a day, to check in with friends, share favourite moments with the family group, send and receive photos and videos, and share documents with colleagues or to decide which shop to go for their next food adventure.
Besides being simple and reliable, WhatsApp is also private. It is end-to-end encrypted by default, which means that only you and the person you are messaging can see your messages, and no one else, not even WhatsApp.
WhatsApp also offers additional layers of privacy, with features you can enable, such as Chat Lock, Silence Unknown Callers, Disappearing Messages and Encrypted Backups. Users can check and adjust their own privacy by going to Settings>Privacy>Privacy Checkup within the app and enabling the privacy and safety features that work best for them.
How private are your messages?
• Only 3 in 10 Malaysians actively enable privacy settings on private messaging apps when speaking to their friends and family.
• 7 in 10 Malaysians think of themselves as private people, and say they ensure all their chats are end-to-end encrypted, so no one, not even the messaging platform/app can see them.
• 5 in 10 Malaysians use Disappearing Messages to keep messages in their group chats private. WhatsApp allows users to set their messages to disappear in 24 hours, 7 days or 90 days.
• 8 out of 10 Malaysians said they would immediately block and report suspicious messages from unknown numbers offering freebies.
• Only 2 out of 10 knew how to prevent strangers from adding them to unwanted group chats by changing their privacy setting from ‘Everyone’ to ‘My Contacts’ under ‘Who can add me to groups’.
• 6 in 10 Malaysians said they actively set an image to View Once when sharing something sensitive. For instance, a photo containing financial information.