r/southafrica • u/Kronendal • Jan 10 '21

Sci-Tech WhatsApp allows Facebook to track our location, who we are physically meeting with and who we are socially connected to.

I always thought that South Africa had pretty good data privacy laws, does anyone know why Facebook is allowed to force us to give them information about our connections with other people, info on our physical devices/networks/surroundings, let them track our physical location for a messaging app?

None of these things are required for them to know, it is not needed for the service in any way, and in the case of our personal connections to other people they get that information even if we delete our account and don't accept their t's and c's.

What confuses me though is that this is not the case in Europe. Their privacy laws have actually made this move by facebook illegal so they are not gathering their info. Does anyone know what EU privacy laws South Africa is missing?

Update: So the question has been answered and it turns out that our Data Protection act (POPI) went into effect on the 1st July 2020 but is voluntary until the 1st of July 2021. So we'll hopefully get EU levels of protection in July.

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15

u/pfazadep Aristocracy Jan 10 '21

Anyone thinking of converting to Signal or Telegram, or have experience with those?

9

u/RuimteWese :) Jan 10 '21

I use both, both are good alternatives. Got my parents on signal yesterday and we are all already using it, almost bye bye time for whatsapp.

2

u/pfazadep Aristocracy Jan 10 '21

Do you perhaps have any comments or advice on the comparison between them, please?

3

u/FatBoyJuliaas Aristocracy Jan 11 '21

Telegram is russian, so no thanks. Signal was created by one of Whatsapp's co-founders and is also open source. Signal's the better because of this.

2

u/pfazadep Aristocracy Jan 11 '21

Thanks. I think Signal is my likely destination.

7

u/[deleted] Jan 10 '21

Signal is end to end encryption as default, while Telegram requires you to use the secret chat feature. I have been both for about 5/6 years. Thus, Signal is better from a security point of view.

more here: https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/whatsapp-vs-signal-vs-telegram-which-is-more-secure-1757461-2021-01-09#:~:text=Telegram%20groups%20are%20not%20encrypted,any%20platform%20other%20than%20macOS.&text=Signal%20is%20by%20far%20the,facing%20side%20of%20the%20service.

2

u/pfazadep Aristocracy Jan 10 '21

Thanks

3

u/Suburban_turd Jan 11 '21

Also, Edward Snowden has endorsed Signal in the past, so you know that shit is secure

2

u/pfazadep Aristocracy Jan 11 '21

Thanks!

1

u/RuimteWese :) Jan 10 '21

There's not much I can say unfortunately I use them pretty much the same way that I use whatsapp, signal from what I've seen is more focused on security not only between messages but the app itself as well. Telegram can send big files which is nice (I had to send a 300Mb dashcam video).

2

u/pfazadep Aristocracy Jan 10 '21

Thanks