The Independent
Sometimes, the delete option is your best friend.
WhatsApp brought you the two-tick (so you can’t hide the fact that you’ve received a message) and then the blue ticks (so you can’t hide the fact that you’ve read a message).
In April – despite much controversy following the San Bernadino attack, in which the FBI had paid almost £1 million to unlock the iPhone used by one of the shooters – WhatsApp went ahead with end-to-end encryption.
This means that while you can’t hide your ghosting antics from the person in question, you can hide your messages from third parties.
But according to a new blog post by Jonathan Zdziarski, who specialises in Apple software, an iOS device might actually still store your “deleted” messages.
The data works similarly to your laptop’s hard drive: you might be able to delete the WhatsApp messages, but deleting it doesn’t overwrite the data, which means it can still be retrieved.
When you backup your iPhone with iCloud the data gets copied to a less secure forum.
While the information can’t necessarily be accessed by a third party, it is still stored locally on your device which means that the only real way to get rid of it is by deleting the app.
Even then, the police can still potentially access it.
“Law enforcement can potentially issue a warrant with Apple to obtain your deleted WhatsApp chat logs, which may include deleted messages”
Basically, the delete option may not be that great friend after all.
