In this opinion piece, Charles Stephenson, Divisional Director from YUDU Sentinel, explores the way ahead when it comes to enterprise communications
While a messaging app such as WhatsApp can be helpful for everyday communications, such a social messaging app is unsuitable for crisis communications. The Business Continuity Institute (BCI) explicitly warns organisations not to rely on WhatsApp in a crisis situation.
I believe that WhatsApp is not designed to be an enterprise or crisis communications system and has significant limitations when used this way. Limitations that can hinder your ability to respond to a crisis and cause long-term damage to the reputation and financial stability of your organisation.
The UK Government is living proof of this, with the Cabinet Office claiming it was not in possession of Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp communications required for the official COVID enquiry; perpetuating negative media headlines and threatening potential legal proceedings.
This article highlights YUDU Sentinel’s view on these limitations and clarifies why you should avoid WhatsApp for crisis communications.
Information overload
Information dissemination is essential during a crisis, but WhatsApp groups can quickly become overwhelmed with messages, leading to information overload.
Critical updates or instructions will get buried in a sea of unrelated or repetitive messages, making extracting and prioritising vital information challenging. They are slowing your ability to respond to a crisis event.
Data collection and sharing
Did you know that WhatsApp collects various types of user data, including phone numbers, contacts, profile photos, status updates, device information and more? Data which it shares with third parties.
WhatsApp retains metadata but not the message. Metadata, such as whom you communicate with, when, and for how long, provide valuable information to third parties, and this metadata may be subject to surveillance or analysis, potentially compromising user privacy.
Additionally, WhatsApp shares some user data with its parent company, Facebook (Meta), for targeted advertising purposes, though it claims not to share messages themselves.
Contact sharing
WhatsApp prompts users to grant access to their phone’s contact list, which may result in unintended data sharing. If users give access, WhatsApp uploads contact details to its servers, even for people who don’t use the platform.
This practice has raised serious GDPR concerns about user consent and the privacy of individuals who have not explicitly agreed to share their information. In fact, WhatsApp was fined €225 million for GDPR violations in September 2021, with a further €5.5 million fine in January 2023.
The responsibility to gain sharing consent continues to lie with the individuals, not WhatsApp, a task that is almost impossible to fulfil.
Compliance and accountability
A record of the actions taken and instructions given in a crisis is essential for compliance and legal defence, especially in the event of a death or serious injury resulting from a crisis event.
In this situation, WhatsApp doesn’t meet multiple compliance requirements. For example, individual users can auto-delete or modify messages after sending them, which tampers with the audit trail. Worse still, there is no way to recover this information as WhatsApp does not keep a record of any changes made or messages deleted.
A court will likely consider any message deletion or amendment of audit trails negatively, and the company will have no defence.
Lack of centralised control
WhatsApp is a decentralised platform, meaning there is no central authority or control over the flow of information or the membership of groups. Members can be added easily but fail to be removed when they should not be in a group resulting in sensitive enterprise information being shared with unauthorised persons.
The lack of control can also lead to difficulties in managing and disseminating accurate information during a crisis. False rumours, misinformation, and unverified content can easily be posted into the group, which may conflict with the verified intelligence causing confusion and unnecessary clarification.
Security and privacy concerns
WhatsApp was never designed for enterprise communications, so it does not offer the security or privacy levels required to protect company data.
While WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption to secure messages sent, they can still be exploited and captured on the device itself, where they remain unencrypted. In addition, chat backups do not have end-to-end encryption unless the individual explicitly turns it
on in their settings. This creates significant security vulnerabilities where company data can be leaked.
This is amplified further still by the portability of data in WhatsApp. As a social messaging platform designed for personal use, every individual can download their conversations with the attached media files. This means any company communication occurring in WhatsApp can be downloaded and publicly shared in a few clicks.
Lack of advanced collaboration features
Crisis management often requires collaborative features such as document sharing, real-time collaboration, task assignment, and tracking. While WhatsApp offers some basic file-sharing capabilities, it lacks the comprehensive collaboration features that dedicated crisis management tools or platforms provide.
Limited integration with other systems
Crisis management often involves integrating with various additional systems, such as emergency alarms and response systems, data analysis tools, or public alert systems.
While WhatsApp continues to build out its integration features and API access, it will not always seamlessly integrate with these types of external systems. This can prevent you from having a comprehensive and streamlined crisis management approach, hampering your response efforts.
Coverage
WhatsApp relies on a stable internet connection to properly send and receive messages. This can present significant issues in a crisis event where network infrastructure may be damaged or overwhelmed.
When coverage is compromised or lost entirely, WhatsApp’s dependency on
internet access can delay crisis communications when needed most. This can place staff and the public at significant risk and have catastrophic consequences.
Crisis management – conclusion
While some still use WhatsApp in a crisis, it is vital to recognise the severe limitations and liabilities and consider using a dedicated crisis management platform that seeks to address these challenges effectively.
Sentinel Chat Channels is an ideal solution, as easy to use as WhatsApp but secure and controlled by you. The instant messaging module is dedicated to crisis management and is managed by your crisis team. You retain visibility of all channels and messages, nothing can be deleted to offer and complete audit trail, and all data is encrypted and secure.
This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.
