Saturday Sites: Issue 05

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. What is Metadata?

3. Should you be worried?

4. Final Thoughts

   1. Links to related articles:

Introduction

Imagine you’re a whistleblower sitting on explosive government secrets. You use WhatsApp to message a reporter hundreds of times, confident that end-to-end encryption will keep you both safe.

Then one day, investigators show up at your door. They don’t have your message contents, but they have something just as powerful:

metadata revealing exactly who you spoke to, when, and how often.

That’s what happened to Natalie Edwards, a former Treasury Department employee who leaked confidential documents to BuzzFeed News. Her WhatsApp metadata was enough to build the case that sent her to prison for six months.

Read more about Natalie Edwards here.

The uncomfortable truth: WhatsApp has successfully convinced billions of users that "end-to-end encrypted" means "completely private." It doesn't.

While they advertise their encryption, they quietly collect what security experts call metadata.

What is Metadata?

Metadata isn’t the content of your messages, it’s all the data around them. Who you talked to, when, how long, where you were, and how often you communicate.

Law enforcement can see your entire social network, when you're most active, and even track your location patterns without ever reading a single message.

But it's not just law enforcement. Meta openly states that WhatsApp metadata is shared with other Meta companies for things like “determining how many people we serve” and “optional features that work across Meta Company Products.”

Translation: your WhatsApp activity helps Facebook and Instagram build detailed advertising profiles about you.

View WhatsApp’s privacy policy here.

Your messaging patterns reveal when you're awake, where you go, who's in your social circle, and what times you're most likely to be scrolling.

Invaluable data for advertisers trying to reach you at the perfect moment.

Should you be worried?

If you are concerned with government and big corporations tracking your location, contacts, and online behaviour, I’d suggest you start looking for alternatives to WhatsApp.

For those serious about true privacy, here are three messaging apps that actually protect your data:

1.) Signal

Signal collects virtually no data about you. Just your phone number for signup and when you last logged in. All messages, calls, and even metadata like who you're talking to are encrypted end-to-end, and nothing is stored on their servers.

It's run by a nonprofit, funded by donations rather than ads, and the code is completely open-source so security experts can verify their privacy claims. Even government officials use it for sensitive communications.

2.) Session

Session requires no phone number, email, or personal information. You get a randomly generated Account ID instead. It routes all messages through a decentralized network of over 2,200 community-run servers using onion routing (like Tor), which means even Session developers can't see who you're talking to or track your IP address.

Based in privacy-friendly Switzerland and recently audited for security, it's designed for users who need complete anonymity rather than just encrypted messages.

3.) Element (Matrix Protocol)

Element operates on a federated system, meaning thousands of independent servers around the world can all communicate with each other. There's no single company controlling the entire network.

You can choose any server provider, run your own server for complete data control, or use Element's hosted service. But you can still message users on any other Matrix server.

It's designed for organizations and teams who want encrypted messaging without being locked into one company's infrastructure, and it can bridge to other platforms like Slack, Teams, and even WhatsApp.

Final Thoughts

If secure communication is genuinely important to you, these three alternatives are completely free and offer real privacy protection, not just marketing promises.

The switch might take a few conversations to convince friends and family, but your privacy is worth the effort.

If this helped you discover something new, follow me on X @calebchiang_ to stay updated with Saturday Sites and other privacy tools I discover. 

And if you want more hand-picked websites like this delivered every Saturday morning, subscribe here. It's free, and I'll never send anything I wouldn't use myself.

Got any cool websites you think I should check out? Send them by replying to this email!

Found this useful? Share it with someone who values their privacy. They'll thank you later.

Links to related articles:

WhatsApp’s Privacy Under Fire: Ads Raise Metadata Concerns
Tom’s Guide recently highlighted how WhatsApp’s introduction of ads and its continued sharing of metadata with Meta for ad targeting has prompted privacy experts to urge re-evaluation of the app's claims.

Reconciling Encryption with Metadata’s Privacy Risks
A Wired feature discusses how metadata, though not encrypted, can expose user behavior and patterns and how some platforms propose sharing anonymized metadata for safety without compromising privacy.

Encrypted Messaging Guards Content but Metadata Still Tells a Story
A Freedom of the Press Foundation article dives into what metadata really includes everything from device info to chat frequency and exposes how WhatsApp logs much more than users realize, compared to privacy-focused apps like Signal.

WhatsApp Shares Metadata Not Content with Meta and Law Enforcement
Wikipedia’s breakdown of WhatsApp’s history and controversies explains how metadata (like contact details, timestamps, IP addresses) has long been shared with Facebook/Meta and used to support law enforcement investigations—including the case of Natalie Edwards.