Privacy and Security in Messaging Apps
There is often discussion about “private” messaging apps and the relative pros and cons, but privacy is a concept that can have different meanings to different people. Here we lay out a framework for thinking about privacy in the context of messaging apps. Privacy is best understood as “private from whom”. There is also a difference between private and secure. The more sophisticated the people or entities that you want privacy and security from, most likely the less user friendly the application experience. Finding the right balance between privacy and usability is a personal decision.
We also argue that understanding who are the people behind the messaging apps is the best indicator of the level of privacy. Another good indicator is ferocity of its adherents. The more adamantly people claim that their app choice is the best and others are “wrong”, the more likely the opposite is true or there is something to hide. People confident in their privacy feel no need to attack others.
The purpose of below is how to think about the levels of privacy and security. There are ample online resources that list and compare the options, so we will leave that to others. Our goal is to create that framework for thinking about the list of options.
The levels of privacy
Unsecure / No Privacy
To understand what is private, we start with apps with no privacy and no security. This is your default text messaging app on your phone with no restrictions to opening and reading the app.
This has no privacy because:
- New message notifications pop up while the phone is locked with the sender and message contents, anyone that can see your phone can see all that information
- If anyone has your phone open, they can open the app and see everything
- The messages are transmitted unencrypted, which means that the intermediary, your phone company in this instance, have a record of everything. If required by a court order for a civil or criminal they can and will turn over your message history
Bottom line: If your spouse is in bed next to you, or if you leave your phone out they are going to see who you are getting messages from and the contents of those messages. If you don’t like the spouse analogy, then your boss at work will see if you are interviewing at another firm.
Private, but not secure (“Personal Private”)
This is the level where you want to be private those within eye sight of your phone. This simply requires doing the following which almost all messaging apps offer:
- Do not display the message sender or contents on the notifications
- Require a PIN or other unlocking to open the app
Now we are private from those around us within a sight line of the phone, and private from someone that has our phone open. People around us will not know who or what we are messaging. But the message app providers have full contents of the messages so that any private party in a lawsuit or judicial proceeding can have full access.
We will call this “Personal Private”
Secure (“Non-governmental private”)
The next level are the end-to-end encrypted apps, with WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram the most popular. To the user the experience is the same, but behind the scenes the messages are encrypted enough before they leave the phone to be plausibly un-readable by the message service provider. At this point a private citizen or company cannot get access to your messages with a subpoena. For all intents and purposes your communications are private and secure from any non-governmental actor.
For 99% of the people, this is good enough. And the apps in this category have as good, if not better user experience than standard text messaging. The only one barrier to use is getting the people you want to message on the same platform. If you can do that, it’s a logical choice.
Above we said that the messages are encrypted enough. The reality is that any messaging app of any scale that runs on service providers like AWS and is hosted in the app store, is most certainly doing so with the approval of that home government. For those inclined to see what happens when an app does not play ball with the government, look at Parler.
Governmental Secure
This is what most people do not care about, but where actual government actors cannot get your messages.
Again, no large government is going to allow infrastructure providers in their country to host a messaging app at scale that they do not have access to. If you are in America, and your messaging app uses AWS, the government can see all your messages. To think otherwise is naive.
There are two options here if you really care about this:
- Use a messaging app developed and hosted by a nation that is hostile or indifferent to your home nation (an example would the Threema)
- Host your own messaging server. Example would be https://www.start9.com/ hosting SimpleX
Team behind the apps
As mentioned above it is critical that you understand who is behind the apps you are using. For example, if you are using WhatsApp and honestly believe the Meta (facebook) cannot see all your data then you are going to be disappointed. That is their business model.
Signal, which I think is an excellent app, is most certainly deeply in bed with the government. The CEO is Meredith Whittaker, formally on the FTC department of the US Government. The Chairwoman is Katherine Maher, former CEO of NPR, the state media of the US, and Wikimedia (parent of Wikipedia). And she famously said that “our reverence for the truth might have become a distraction that is preventing us from getting important things done”. There is zero chance a firm run by these women would not be an open book to their home government.
Other apps may have ties to governments you do not like, or do not trust. Or may have a for profit business model. These are all things you need to take into consideration when deciding which app to use.
In conclusion, privacy and security is a continuum, pick the messaging apps that fulfil your needs but have your eyes open to the reality of from whom you are private and secure.
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