Maintaining your privacy on social media is of paramount importance today, especially with cybercrime rates rising worldwide. Among these, WhatsApp is a crucial platform that one must prioritize. Given that it relies on your phone number to create an account and communicate with people, you must ensure that you have ticked all the right boxes.
The good thing is that WhatsApp offers a whole host of privacy features that you can use to ensure you’re as safe as possible on the app. This is essential as there are various ways people can spy on WhatsApp messages on your iPhone or take advantage of any information you give out on your profile.
Research conducted by Cell Tracking Apps shows that there are various ways in which people can read or spy on someone’s WhatsApp messages without them knowing.
In the first section below, we’ll dive into some key privacy settings that you can enable to keep yourself safe, post which we’ll also offer you some other good practices that can help.
Privacy Settings You Must Enable on WhatsApp
Change your Personal Privacy Settings
Some of the most basic settings you can check on your WhatsApp account or profile are your personal ones. Here’s how you can access them –
- Open WhatsApp
- Click on the Settings button.
- Click on Privacy to access the various settings you can change.
Once you click on Privacy, you will see a lit of options that include Last Seen, Profile Photo, About, Groups, and Status. You might notice that these settings are set to “Everyone” by default. However, the best thing to do is to set these to “My Contacts” or “Nobody,” depending on who you want these elements to be visible to.
For example, if you set your profile picture to “My Contacts,” only those in your contact list or people you “Accept” will be able to see your picture.
Change Your Group Privacy Settings
It often happens that we’re added to groups that include people we don’t know or are only briefly acquainted with. In such situations, people in groups can often have access to information like your last seen, status, or profile picture. However, if you’re concerned that someone in the group might not be the right person to have access to these details, you can choose to have this information hidden from them. You can do this by selecting the “My Contacts Except…”
option.
Block People Who Make You Uncomfortable
Sometimes, both people in your contact list and outside it can make you feel uncomfortable. These people could be online predators who are attempting to find out excessively private information about you or someone trying to harass you. The best thing to do in such a situation is to block them. This ensures that they won’t be able to message or call you ever again or access your private information like your profile photo or your status.
Enable a Password for WhatsApp
Sometimes, the people who you need to keep at arm’s length are not those on your contact list but someone among your friends or acquaintances. This can especially be the case when you’re part of a larger group that may have people you don’t entirely trust or your workplace.
If you feel like your WhatsApp messages are at risk of being spied on or your phone being hacked into, the best thing to do is to set a password for WhatsApp, apart from your iPhone’s Face ID or pin.
Make Use of Airplane Mode
Sometimes, there are people you can’t entirely block on WhatsApp through your iPhone. This could be a colleague from work or a mutual friend you don’t want to talk to but don’t want to offend or make things awkward. If this person messages you often but you don’t want to read their messages, you can make use of Airplane Mode on your iPhone.
You can do this by turning on Airplane Mode through the Control Centre on your iPhone. This cuts off your access to the internet, thus getting rid of your read receipts. With this, you can open WhatsApp and read the person’s message without them knowing you were online.
Never Share Your Number With Strangers
While this doesn’t fall into the category of WhatsApp’s privacy settings, it’s a great practice to keep in mind at all times. With the internet making it very easy to meet new people online, we often tend to give our out numbers to people we might not be too familiar with. However, this can often be the first step towards putting yourself in a dangerous or uncomfortable situation.
As a result, the best thing to do is always refrain from giving your number out to strangers, even if other people vouch for them. You must always be sure about someone yourself before letting them into your inner circle.
In Conclusion
These are some of the best ways you can keep your privacy settings up to date on WhatsApp to ensure you don’t give others an opportunity to harass, disturb or spy on your WhatsApp messages on your iPhone. With the advancements in technology, there are several apps that people can use to spy on your iPhone, so it’s of utmost importance that you always keep your guard up. Following these steps can give you immense peace of mind while keeping you safe from any untoward instances.