WhatsApp has offered end-to-end encrypted chats for five years and is now rolling out the same feature for backups, the Facebook-owned messaging service announced on Thursday.
The feature is “slowly” going live on the latest version of the app, following testing on its iOS and Android betas, and will allow users to secure their backups with a password or 64-digit encryption key.
This means that nobody — including Facebook, WhatsApp, Google, or Apple — will be able to view the content of these backups.
The company has cautioned that “if you forget your password and lose your phone, WhatsApp cannot help you recover your backup” — the company is also unable to reset your password or encryption key.
WhatsApp users can enable the backup encryption feature by following these steps on their iOS or Android device:
Go to Settings
Select Chats > Chats Backup > End-to-end Encrypted Backup
Tap continue and follow the prompts to set a password or 64-digit encryption key
Tap done — Users may need to connect their devices to a power source while their encrypted backups are prepared
Once the feature is enabled, it is recommended to remove WhatsApp from the device’s backup systems as these are not secured.
The feature should soon be available on all Android and iOS devices running the latest version of WhatsApp.
Source: mybroadband
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