KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 18 — Would you consider yourself a private person? Well, according to WhatsApp, the likelihood is that you do. According to an online privacy quiz held in conjunction with Global Encryption Day on October 21, seven out of ten Malaysians say they are private people who would ensure their chats are end-to-end encrypted—something WhatsApp enables by default.
That doesn’t mean they’re willing to take action to protect said privacy, however. The messaging app company found that only three out of ten Malaysians actively enable privacy features on messaging platforms, including WhatsApp.
The same quiz also revealed that Malaysians react selectively to privacy issues. While eight out of ten Malaysians say they’d immediately block and report suspicious messages from unknown numbers offering freebies, only six out of ten enable the View Once option when sending sensitive images (such as those containing financial information) and five out of ten use Disappearing Messages.
Furthermore, only three out of ten Malaysians leave immediately if they are added to an unwanted group chat by a stranger, and just two out of ten have changed their “Who can add me to groups” setting from “Everyone” to “My Contacts” to prevent this in the first place.
Aside from the aforementioned functions, WhatsApp offers other privacy and security features like Chat Lock (which enables users to lock chats using their phone’s authentication methods), Silence Unknown Callers and Encrypted Backups. You can check your privacy and enable these features by going into Settings > Privacy > Privacy Checkup. — SoyaCincau
