Did you mistakenly send a picture to someone via WhatsApp that you shouldn’t have sent?
Well, you’re not alone. We have all been there, but what’s actually more shocking is that the ‘Delete for Everyone’ feature WhatsApp introduced nearly two years ago contains an unpatched privacy bug, leaving users with an unreal sense of privacy.
As the name implies, the ‘Delete for Everyone’ feature has been intended to undo mistakenly sent inappropriate messages—which includes photos and videos—from the sender’s phone, or members of a group.
This feature is only available within 1 hour, 8 minutes, and 16 seconds of sending a message you want to delete.
However, it was recently discovered that WhatsApp’s ‘Delete for Everyone’ feature doesn’t delete media files sent to iPhone users as it does from the Android phones, leaving them saved on the recipient’s iOS device even if the chat screen displays you, “This message has been deleted.”
WhatsApp hasn’t really addressed this issue but only released a statement saying, “The functionality provided via “Delete for Everyone” is intended to delete the message and there is no guarantee that the media (or message) will be permanently deleted—the implementation focuses around the message presented on WhatsApp.”
Source: The Hacker News
