After WhatsApp’s latest privacy policy sparked a widespread exodus of users to other messaging apps this month, it’s clear that we need to have a serious conversation about data privacy – for businesses. Most free messaging apps don’t respect users’ privacy in a way that meets business requirements because they collect and share personal data. But WhatsApp is still the most widely-used mobile-app in the workplace, even surpassing the go-to workplace team chat apps, like Slack and Microsoft Teams. So now that there is a mass WhatsApp exodus, where are your employees headed and why is it a problem?

Free Messaging Apps Have Hidden Costs

Free messaging apps need to benefit from their users in some way – and usually that’s by collecting and sharing user data. In the age of legislation like HIPAA and CCPA, this can easily lead to fines for businesses because that data isn’t necessarily kept private. Any company whose employees communicate with clients over one of these apps, for example, is placing customer data at risk and leaving the company vulnerable to heavy fines. With regulations like these likely to become more and more widespread in the coming years, impacting nearly every business, practicing data privacy is important for every company.

That’s why it’s so important for businesses to turn to trusted providers who have a vested interest in protecting their customers’ data and have no reason to benefit from advertising or from collecting user information for demographic profiling. Where free apps might track who you’re calling when and for how long, a trusted provider doesn’t collect that metadata. With a paid, trusted provider, you know exactly what you’re handing over in exchange for services. You’re dictating the terms, working with the trusted provider to define the service that they’re providing and what they receive in exchange for it.

 

 

You Need to Stay in Control

It’s all too easy for employees to go rogue on these apps by sharing sensitive documents externally – whether by accident or on purpose – with management having no idea and no way to track those apps. And external users can easily find employees, impersonating others, communicating with them, manipulating them – as is all too common with phishing scams these days.

Contrast this with the kind of control a trusted provider gives you. With a trusted provider, management controls who is in the conversation through a centrally managed contact directory. That means only people who are in your business are in the directory and only those people – not anyone external – can participate in work-related chats. You’re protected from any external people contacting you. So, those obnoxious phishing messages from people pretending to be executives trying to scam your business out of money or steal sensitive information simply can’t reach any of your employees. Meanwhile, employees don’t have to change any of their regular behaviors – communicating and sharing documents the same ways that that they did before.

There’s A Trusted App for You

It’s not too good to be true. Vaporstream is that trusted provider. We prioritize business data privacy while making it simple for employees to communicate. All contacts are centrally managed, making it easy to make calls and video calls without having to share user phone numbers and protecting conversations from external users. We don’t track your metadata, so records of who participates in a call, when calls take place and how long they took remain protected at all times. And we never share your data for advertising purposes. Your privacy is our priority. Learn more about how we can support your business here:

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