Why Iran Is Urging Residents to Delete WhatsApp Amid Israel Conflict
A person holds a smartphone displaying the WhatsApp app in the background, on Nov. 6, 2024. Credit - Cheng Xin—Getty Images
Amid the escalating active conflict between Israel and Iran, the latter has delivered yet another directive to its residents, this time involving the popular messaging platform WhatsApp.
Iran instructed its population, via state television, to delete WhatsApp on account of safety and privacy concerns.
Here's what to know about the country-wide directive.
Iranian state television urged residents on Tuesday afternoon to delete WhatsApp from their smartphones, on account of concerns the messaging platform is gathering user information to share with Israel.
It's understood that residents were encouraged to refrain from using other 'location-based applications,' also.
The television report did not offer any evidence to support the privacy-related claims.
A WhatsApp spokesperson told TIME on Wednesday morning that the Meta-owned messaging platform is concerned about the reports coming from Iranian state television.
'We're concerned these false reports will be an excuse for our services to be blocked at a time when people need them the most,' the emailed statement read. 'All of the messages you send to family and friends on WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted. We do not track your precise location, we don't keep logs of who everyone is messaging, and we do not track the personal messages people are sending one another. We do not provide bulk information to any government.'
WhatsApp's publicly-shared information purports that its 'end-to-end encryption' effectively 'locks' chats between individuals, and that no one, including WhatsApp, can access those messages.
Read More: Air Supremacy Over Tehran Gives Israel a Decisive Edge—And Raises New Risks
A number of social media and messaging apps are banned or heavily restricted in Iran, including Instagram, Telegram, and X, but millions of Iranians still access the sites via VPNs.
In 2022, WhatsApp and Google Play were banned by the Iranian government during nationwide protests after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody. Iran restored access to WhatsApp and Google Play in December 2024.
Read More: What To Know About Iran's Nuclear Program After Israel's Strikes
While no evidence has been provided by Iran regarding its recent instruction to its residents, there have long been privacy concerns surrounding WhatsApp.
In January, Meta alleged that journalists and other WhatsApp users had been targeted by spyware from Paragon Solutions, an Israeli spyware maker.
A WhatsApp official said that at least 90 users were targeted in over two dozen countries by a 'zero-click hack,' which uses a malicious electronic document to compromise an account without any interaction from the user themselves.
It was not clear who was behind the incident or which of Paragon's clients may have ordered the attack.
In May, the NSO Group—the Israeli firm which developed the Pegasus spyware—was ordered to pay WhatsApp $167m over a hacking campaign that targeted 1,400 users in 2019. Meta called the settlement 'an important step forward for privacy and security as the first victory against the development and use of illegal spyware that threatens the safety and privacy of everyone.'
Meta claimed that WhatsApp was not the only target of the attacks, and that Pegasus "has had many other spyware installation methods to exploit other companies' technologies to manipulate people's devices into downloading malicious code and compromising their phones."
Contact us at letters@time.com.
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