Which phone messaging apps are best for your security?

With the pandemic restricting how people interact in person, more and more are holding most conversations via cell phone and messaging apps.

Facebook, Messenger, Telegram, iMessage, WhatsApp and Signal are the most popular phone messaging apps.

It’s not always easy to know which app is best. Experts say security and privacy should be one of the deciding factors. WhatsApp has long been thought to make those concepts a priority.

"It was the first mainstream application to push end-to-end encryption. It really popularized it," said Zak Doffman, who writes about cybersecurity and privacy issues for Forbes. He added, "WhatsApp takes more credit than any other app for securing communications between people around the world."

Doffman says while WhatsApp is known for protecting user information, its parent company is not!

"It is owned by Facebook, which is, you know, almost like the opposite. So Facebook is known for harvesting data and, you know, central compromises of privacy and security," said Doffman.

Earlier this year, a change to WhatsApp’s privacy policy allowed businesses to collect data on individuals who interact with them. The change became public when Apple began publishing privacy information on apps that users download.

"This was the first time that, in an accessible way, users could see what data was being collected or harvested by various applications. WhatsApp was well out of step with iMessage, with Signal, even with Telegram," said Doffman.

He offered a chart from Forbes magazine accompanying an article he wrote. It shows data being collected on users when they use different messaging apps. To best secure information and privacy, Doffman suggests disconnecting WhatsApp from backup services like the Google or Apple Clouds.

"So if you want to be super-safe, you turn that backup off. It means if you lose your phone, you lose your messages, but it also means you’ve got control," said Doffman.

Doffman says the messaging apps he uses are Signal for work conversations and iMessage for conversations between Apple phone users. He says both are very secure.