Umer Zahid
With the ever-increasing risk of data theft that exists today on the internet, protecting your data has never been more important. Many cybercriminals want to get hands-on your confidential information. Luckily, now tech companies provide many options that help us fortify our personal data. This brings us to the topic of this article: how to make sure your WhatsApp is still end-to-end encrypted.
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WhatsApp end-to-end encryption ensures that you and only the person you’re communicating with can read what’s sent. No other person, not even WhatsApp, can read what you have sent to the recipient. Basically, all the messages on WhatsApp are secured through cryptographic locks and only sender and the receiver have the special keys to unlock and read messages. While all these things happen in the background, but you can verify that the conversations are protected by comparing or scanning unique security code.
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How to verify that Chats are End-to-End Encrypted
All of the chats on WhatsApp are always end-to-end encrypted and there is no way to deactivate it. However, you can still know whether the calls and messages you send to the chat are encrypted or not. Here’s how to do it.
- Open WhatsApp in your device.
- Open the chat that you want to check is encrypted or not.
- Now open the contact info screen.
- After that, tap on “encryption” to view the 60 digit number and QR code.
If you and your contact are physically close to each other, then you can scan the QR code on your devices or you can compare the 60-digit number to verify end-to-end encryption. After scanning the QR code, you will see a green checkmark appear on the device screen.
If a green checkmark does not appear on your screen, then it is likely that you are scanning the code of another contact or your contact has recently reinstalled WhatsApp or changed the phone. Ask your contact to send a message to you in order to refresh the security code.
Note: Each chat has its own security code which can be used to verify end-to-end encryption.
If you are not physically near to your contact then you can share the 60-digit number with your contact via email or SMS. If the code matches, then it means that your chat is encrypted.
Note: According to WhatsApp, the visible security code is not the actual version; the actual keys are always kept secret.
There you have it! This is how you can make sure your WhatsApp is still end-to-end encrypted. If you have any queries related to the topic, then let us know in the comments section provided below and keep following the space for more tech-related guides.
