This post is just to let you know the significant amount of personal data each messaging apps collects from you since some of you are considering switching to another messaging app.
Facebook and WhatsApp collect a significant amount of personal data from users, and this is especially apparent when compared with competing applications.
Telegram, which purports to offer greater privacy as well as end-to-end encryption, collects far less personal data.
Another privacy-focused messaging app that has been touted as a competitor to WhatsApp is Signal – which collects no personal information and runs on an open-source encryption framework, with your messages and data stored locally.
To demonstrate the differences in personal data collection between these different services, we have listed how these services broadly handle user data according to Apple’s Privacy labels in the infographic below.
Your Personal Data Collected by Apps
| Data linked to you | Telegram | Signal | ||
| Contact Info | Yes | Yes | Yes | – |
| Contacts | Yes | Yes | Yes | – |
| Identifiers | Yes | Yes | Yes | – |
| Purchases | Yes | Yes | – | – |
| Financial Info | Yes | Yes | – | – |
| Location | Yes | Yes | – | – |
| User Content | Yes | Yes | – | – |
| Usage Data | Yes | Yes | – | – |
| Diagnostics | Yes | Yes | – | – |
| Health and Fitness | Yes | – | – | – |
| Search History | Yes | – | – | – |
| Browsing History | Yes | – | – | – |
| Sensitive Info | Yes | – | – | – |
| Other Data | Yes | – | – | – |