The writer is director of Bolo Bhi, an advocacy forum for digital rights. APPREHENSION over an update to the privacy policy of the popular messaging application WhatsApp has been rife on social media. It is encouraging to see such widespread concern for users’ privacy and data protection. At the same time, it is important to track how secure messaging has evolved over time, what this update in the privacy policies of a popular messaging application entails, and what our takeaway from this fiasco can be. WhatsApp was founded in 2009 by two former Yahoo employees, and slowly evolved into the most popular mobile phone messaging application. The salient advantage of WhatsApp was that one could sent unlimited free messages with an internet connection, ending the reliance on SMS that are charged at a per message rate by telecom operators. Though iMessage existed for Apple customers and Blackberry messenger for Blackberry customers, these could only be used if both parties communicating owned a device of the same company. With the advent and increased popularity of the Android operating system developed by Google, anyone could have access to encrypted private messaging through WhatsApp, which previously only Apple and Blackberry customers could enjoy, by downloading the application on any kind of device.