WhatsApp has introduced a limited function that allows the company to access the messages of a conversation between users or a group if one of them reports another contact.
At present, when a user reported to another on WhatsApp, the application prepared a report considering factors such as whether the phone number is new or has already received complaints. However, he could not access the conversations, end-to-end encrypted.
Now, WhatsApp has updated its latest beta for mobiles with Android system (version 2.20.206.3), in which it has introduced the possibility of verifying user complaints by accessing a copy of part of the content of the chats, as reported by the wabetainfo portal.
The application does not access the content of the messages by itself, but users have to authorize access to a copy of recent messages when they report to another person. The feature is present for both individual and group chats and for the WhatsApp Business version of companies.
When the user chooses the option to report a contact, WhatsApp displays a confirmation window in which it informs that it will access “the most recent messages” from this person, if it continues with the report. It also gives the option to block the reported contact and delete their messages from the chat, as was already the case.
The function is present only in the latest beta of WhatsApp for Android, and at the moment it has not yet reached the stable version of the application distributed on official channels.
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