WhatsApp, the largest messaging platform in the world with over 2 billion active users, is making a controversial change that will certainly generate a lot of discussion among Android phone users. We are talking about a change for WhatsApp based on which the application will ask people for access to the call list to verify their accounts when they try to log in from a new device.
WhatsApp makes this change, theoretically, to ease the procedure to access accounts from the platform, it being optional for users, but even so, the application will ask for access to the list of phone calls. You can see in the image below how WhatsApp explains what it wants to do, everything being centered around the fact that logging into the platform can be done automatically through this procedure, without using access codes sent via SMS.
WhatsApp wants access to the call list on Android phones
According to the procedure described by the application, when we access the automatic login in the accounts on the Android phones, access to the list of calls from the phones will be automatically requested. After this permission is granted, WhatsApp will call us and automatically end the call, then the application will check the list of calls to see which is the last phone number that called us, and if it coincides with the one registered in the platform's servers for authentication, then we will be logged into the accounts.
Theoretically, the WhatsApp application should not to take too many phone numbers from the call list of Android phones, and it should not send the list to the company's servers, but we will see what the reality will be. For now, it is not known how many phone numbers from the list will be checked, what exactly happens with them, and it is quite unlikely that additional and detailed explanations will be offered by the company behind the platform after the launch of the function in Android.
WhatsApp will not release this feature for iPhone because Apple does not allow third-party applications to access call list information, so iOS users have nothing to worry about.
