WhatsApp announced in a blog post on Wednesday that the Facebook owned messaging service now has 2 billion users worldwide, up from 1.5 billion and 1 billion users in 2018 and 2016, respectively. WhatsApp used the milestone to reiterate the importance of encrypting its users’ messages, a practice that is coming under increasing amounts of pressure from lawmakers around the world. WhatsApp also said that it will work towards tightening the security.
BRAZIL – 2019/05/14: In this photo illustration the WhatsApp logo seen displayed on a smartphone. (Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
WhatsApp now has 2 billion users worldwide
The blog post regarding the security reads, “Strong encryption acts like an unbreakable digital lock that keeps the information you send over WhatsApp secure, helping protect you from hackers and criminals. No one in between can read your messages or listen to your calls, not even us. Your private conversations stay between you. We will not compromise on security because that would make people less safe. For even more protection, we work with top security experts, employ industry leading technology to stop misuse as well as provide controls and ways to report issues – without sacrificing privacy.”
WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart says that the company has no plans to disable encryption on its service. He told The Wall Street Journal, “For all of human history, people have been able to communicate privately with each other, and we don’t think that should go away in a modern society.” However, the CEO added that WhatsApp will provide metadata when it is useful for an investigation.
The end-to-end encryption, which has been at the helm of the functioning of WhatsApp, has come under the scanner from the lawmakers in some countries. The governments have urged Facebook’s WhatsApp to develop a tool that will circumvent the encryption wall on the app, citing reasons such as those helpful in tracking people who spread fake news and incite violence. But WhatsApp has so far not complied with the demands of the governments.
Cathcart told the WSJ that the company is working to make the service interoperable with Facebook’s other messaging clients in plans announced by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last year. However, Cathcart admitted this integration may have its limits, with some features that are present on a messaging service like Messenger not translating into WhatsApp.
