WhatsApp has made the feature of encrypting backups on Google Drive with its own password available to certain beta testers. Those backups are normally encrypted with a password that is managed by the WhatsApp service itself.
WABetaInfo reports that Android beta version 2.21.15.5 is “compatible” with its own password backup functionality. Responders on Twitter report that they are indeed seeing the feature. However, it does not seem to be available to every beta tester: an attempt by Skywaypost to obtain the function itself was unsuccessful. Skywaypost received beta version 2.21.15.7.
WhatsApp messages themselves are already end-to-end encrypted, meaning only the sender and receiver can read them. Chat log backups are also encrypted by WhatsApp on Google Drive or iCloud put by the chat app. However, there is something to argue with: that data on those two platforms is encrypted at those hosts, but not end-to-end encrypted. Google says about this : “we only access your private data with your permission or when we are obliged to do so by law”. Also at Apple , this kind of data is not covered by end-to-end encryption, so they can access it and possibly hand it over to authorities who arrive with a court order.
If that happens, the only line of defense left for those backups is the encryption WhatsApp applied to the database. The key for this is in the hands of WhatsApp itself and is handed over once it has been verified that the user proves who they are, by means of a verification SMS. The downside to this is that it is not known what kind of encryption is applied to the cloud backup and that the key is not under the control of the user. WhatsApp may also be forced by authorities to hand over a decryption key.
With this beta version for Android, that is about to change. WhatsApp still won’t let us know what encryption is on those cloud backups, but at least the password to decrypt it can now remain exclusively in the hands of the user. WhatsApp therefore warns about the beta function: your cloud backup is unusable if you lose your password.
Furthermore, it has always been the case that WhatsApp does not encrypt cloud backups of media at all. Whether that will change with this beta is not yet known.
The iOS version of WhatsApp doesn’t have the feature yet, not even in beta, but it’s being worked on . Furthermore, commenters under the WABetaInfo tweet report that they are dealing with error messages with the feature on Android. That, combined with the fact that our more recent beta version doesn’t have the feature, may mean WhatsApp went back to the drawing board after all. Either way, availability of the feature doesn’t seem far off.
