WhatsApp is a proprietary app and Facebook did plan to implement client-side agents that would extract info from content, or blacklist it. This means Facebook has the capability of backdooring WhatsApp and by extension the US government has this capability.
This isn't just about the metadata, you would be naive to think so. Proprietary apps, especially those that get automatically updated, will always have this loophole.
> "Criminal and state actors have access to most of that information anyway."
You don't have evidence for this and regardless, metadata access can be prevented and it's in a country's best interest to protect its affairs from governments of other countries or from organized crime.
> This isn't just about the metadata, you would be naive to think so. Proprietary apps, especially those that get automatically updated, will always have this loophole.
I would say most applications that goverment offices in Germany use to interact with citizens are proprietary. For example Outlook as a mail client. SAP is used in some administrations. Many cities and police departments have presences on Facebook and Twitter and communicate with people there. Nobody has any issue with using proprietary SMS apps or iMessage.
In fact, open source in administration is currently so rare that it is newsworthy.
This isn't just about the metadata, you would be naive to think so. Proprietary apps, especially those that get automatically updated, will always have this loophole.
[1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/08/facebook_plan...
> "Criminal and state actors have access to most of that information anyway."
You don't have evidence for this and regardless, metadata access can be prevented and it's in a country's best interest to protect its affairs from governments of other countries or from organized crime.