Most of us use WhatsApp to chat and call daily, and WhatsApp claims that our chats are end-to-end encrypted and no one can see or read them, which is true to my knowledge. But, the chat backups that we do are not encrypted and this information should be concerning to all of those who want to keep their data and information secure and private.
Don’t worry. WhatsApp has already taken care of it but most of us don’t know it yet. In today’s blog, we’ll see how to enable end-to-end encryption for WhatsApp chat backup.
On October 14, 2021, WhatsApp rolled out end-to-end encryption for backups on Android and iOS.
The Facebook-owned company says “with end-to-end encrypted backup, you can also add that same layer of protection to your iCloud and Google Drive backups.” Since 2016, WhatsApp has offered its users end-to-end encryption by default for messages, video and audio calls.
indianexpress.com – 15 Oct 2021
Follow the below steps with me to enable encryption of the chat.
Go to WhatsApp Settings and find Chats.
On the Chats screen go to Chat backup.
On the Chat backup screen, you will find the End-to-end encrypted backup.
Select End-to-end encrypted backup you will see a screen something like below. Click on the “Turn on“.
WhatsApp provides 2 encryption methods
- Password
- 64-bit encryption key
I selected the password method you can select one of the above at your convenience.
Once clicked on “Create password” you will be taken to the Create password screen where you can create a password that will be used to encrypt your chat backup. Create a strong password and confirm it on the next screen.
Once confirmed password you can create your end-to-end encrypted backup by clicking on “Create“.
The encryption process will complete in the background and WhatsApp will notify you in some time about the completion.
Congratulations 🥳, you have completed the chat backup encryption process.
To know more about WhatsApp privacy go to https://www.whatsapp.com/privacy
Thank you for reading this article, I really appreciate it. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and if you haven’t enabled (Two-Factor Authentication) 2FA on WhatsApp yet please enable it today.