FixablePlatforms & social life
Messaging metadata
Even encrypted chat shows who you talked to, and when.
Understand it
End-to-end encryption, as Signal uses, hides the content of your messages - but the metadata often remains: who you contacted, when, how often, and from roughly where. WhatsApp, iMessage and the phone network keep more of this than people expect, and metadata alone can reveal a great deal about your life.
How to spot it
The message body may be private; the pattern of who-and-when usually isn’t.
Close the gap
- For sensitive contact, use an app that minimises metadata, such as Signal.
- Turn off cloud backups that store chats unencrypted, or encrypt the backup.
- Disable read receipts and “last seen” where you’d rather not broadcast them.
- Remember a VPN hides your network, not who you message.
What to do about it
This is part of your plan at the High-risk level - Compartmentalise your identities. Work through it there and you’ll close this off along with everything else it covers.