WhatsApp Privacy Quiz: 7 in 10 Malaysians care about the privacy of their messages, but only 3 out of 10 make full use of privacy tools

Ahead of World Encryption Day (October 21), WhatsApp ran an online privacy quiz, asking Malaysians how much they care about the privacy of their messages with friends and family. While 7 out of 10 Malaysians think of themselves as private people who would ensure that their chats are end-to-end encrypted, only 3 out of 10 said that they actively enable privacy features on messaging platforms.

Malaysians are selectively vigilant when it comes to being safe online: 8 in 10 Malaysians block and report messages offering freebies from an unknown number, but only 3 out of 10 Malaysians leave immediately if strangers added them to an unwanted group chat.

More than 2 billion people around the world use WhatsApp to stay in touch with friends and family. In Malaysia, people use it every day, multiple times a day, to check in with friends, share favourite moments with the family group, send and receive photos and videos, and share documents with colleagues or to decide which shop to go for their next food adventure.

Besides being simple (so simple, even your uncles and aunties are pros) and reliable, WhatsApp is also private. It is end-to-end encrypted by default, which means that only you and the person you’re messaging can see your messages, and no one else, not even WhatsApp.

WhatsApp also offers additional layers of privacy, with features you can enable, such as Chat Lock, Silence Unknown Callers, Disappearing Messages and Encrypted Backups. Users can check and adjust their own privacy by going to Settings>Privacy>Privacy Checkup within the app and enabling the privacy and safety features that work best for them. For more on WhatsApp’s privacy features, visit whatsapp.com/privacy