In light of the new EU regulations, Meta must ensure that its messaging services are compatible with other platforms by March 2024. However, popular messaging apps like Signal and Threma have no plans to integrate with WhatsApp’s third-party chat feature in order to prioritize user safety and confidentiality, as reported by Android Police.
According to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), Meta is required to be prepared to interact with other services within three months of receiving a request. While the company acknowledges this timeline, they caution that the actual implementation of the interoperability feature may take longer.
In the initial phase of DMA, support for personal third-party chats, including file exchange, images, videos, and voice messages, is mandatory. The requirement will eventually extend to group chats and calls.
Meta previously announced that developers of third-party messaging apps must agree to collaborate with Messenger and WhatsApp before integrating the interoperability feature. While Meta encourages the use of WhatsApp Signal encryption protocol, they are willing to work with other protocols that meet security standards. Meta pledges to ensure encryption through end-to-end encryption (E2EE), regardless of the chosen protocol.
Despite the potential user expansion by aligning with WhatsApp, secure messaging platforms like Signal and Threma have made it clear that they have no interest in partnering with WhatsApp, as emphasized in Heise. Their commitment to user confidentiality and safety remains their top priority.
Signal’s President, Meredacher, stated, “Our privacy standards are extremely high, and we have no intention of compromising them. Partnering with Facebook Messenger, iMessage, WhatsApp, or even the Matrix service would result in a downgrade of our data protection standards.”
A representative from Threma echoed a similar sentiment, saying, “Our security and privacy standards are fundamentally incompatible with those of WhatsApp. We cannot and will not compromise on these standards, as they are core to the essence of Threma.”
While WhatsApp chats are encrypted using the same Signal protocol as Signal and Threma, WhatsApp lacks robust protection for metadata privacy. Signal and Threma express concerns about the potential exposure of user data to WhatsApp, as the closed-source nature of WhatsApp raises uncertainties about the handling of user data, even if end-to-end encryption is in place.