The GCHQ in the UK had ideas to spy on encrypted
messaging in WhatsApp. An open letter to the GCHQ
clearly stated that spying on private communication
would make users doubt the privacy of WhatsApp.

Also the label “encrypted” would become obsolete. What is the purpose of an encryption if it can’t be used at all. If GCHQ would have the opportunity to hook into every private chat by declaring the private Chat as a group chat while secretly adding any GCHQ worker as hidden member to these groups.

Except from the fact that there are so many chats ongoing in WhatsApp (numbers state that each day over 55 billion messages and over 4.5 billion pictures are sent!) this would just mean a general incrimination of every user so far.

Although there is no known backdoor implemented in WhatsApp yet, WhatsApp has recently lost a lot of reputation due to security flaws in it’s protocol. Also since WhatsApp is part of the Facebook network, they again lost reputation as it is known that Facebook is using statistical data made from keywords of chats to analyze user’s preferences and later make them see ads in group chats where useful (according to Facebook’s opinion!).

Rough times for WhatsApp indeed. And this is nothing that would give WhatsApp more reputation if they consider implementing a backdoor to allow the GCHQ sniff private and encrypted(!) chats!