Whatsapp has been working on many new updates such as Transfer Whatsapp Chats Across IOS And Android, Whatsapp Payment, and many privacy-related updates. With the rival messenger, Telegram is coming up with regular new advanced updates, WhatsApp is also in hurry to bring new updates. So now, after testing end-to-end (E2EE) encryption for cloud backups earlier, the Facebook-owned company plans to add the security feature to local backups on iOS and Android devices soon.
As per the tweets, WhatsApp will soon enable end-to-end encryption for local as well as cloud backups for users on iOS and Android soon.
End-to-end encrypted backups are coming soon to iOS and Android. Keep an eye on this thread for updates! 👀
— WhatsApp (@WhatsApp) September 10, 2021
WhatsApp has already end-to-end encryption for all chats on WhatsApp to keep secure chats from prying eyes. However, the chats which were backed up locally or on google drive or icloud were not encrypted.
So, to secure the WhatsApp backups on Google Drive or iCloud and on the local storage, WhatsApp has been working to introduce end-to-end encryption for backups. It will enable users to set a unique encryption key for their cloud as well as local backups to prevent unauthorized access.
As per the press releases statement given by Whatsapp, “this was very challenging and incredibly technical” to develop the E2EE system for encrypted backups. The messaging giant Whatsapp also mentioned they had to develope “an entirely new framework for key and cloud storage” to enable the feature.
While end-to-end encryption for backups is a pretty useful feature, it is worth mentioning that if a user forgets their encryption key, there is no way to recover the backups. It is because the encryption keys to access chat backups are stored locally on a user device and not sent to WhatsApp or the cloud service provider.
As for availability, WhatsApp will initially start rolling out E2EE support for backups to WhatsApp beta testers on iOS and Android. Based on the beta testing reports, the company might roll out the feature for global users in the coming months.
