Apple has introduced a new feature in the App Store that allows us displays all data to which applications have access. This is something companies like Facebook did not like at all, as they make available to users all the data they have to provide in return for using their apps and services.
However, this is a new privacy feature from Apple which should be highly appreciated and which empowers users. We knew Facebook was collecting our data, but we’re not able to understand it until you see everything well explained and cataloged.
For this reason, we decided to compare the the data they collect which can be the 4 most used messaging apps by iPhone users: iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook Messenger.
Comparison of data collected by major messaging applications
WhatsApp It is the most used messaging app in the world and probably every user has it installed on their iPhone. On another side, Telegram it is positioned as the main alternative. We have also iMessage, Apple’s email application is installed on many of the company’s devices. And finally Facebook Messenger, which in some places is a widely used application.
All this data that we have collected you can see them in the App Store in each application section. Those for the iOS Messages app can be found on Apple’s official privacy site.
We could stop to analyze the data accessible by each application, but A picture is better than a thousand words for this comparison:
As you can see, the one less data you need to collect to operate is TelegramWhile it is true that if you later grant it location permissions or sign up with an email, the data collected is the same as the Apple app.
Then we have WhatsApp, with a fairly large amount of data collected, but what’s left totally overshadowed by the sheer amount of data Facebook Messenger collects from each user. Without a doubt, the app that gets the most data from its users.
In addition to all this, it should be borne in mind that now WhatsApp will share data with Facebook, and if you don’t agree, it will delete your account. So the amount of data that Facebook can have in its possession is really frightening.
