Privacy

31987 readers

602 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

Chat rooms

[Matrix/Element]Dead
Discord

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

Safest way of using WeChat on Android? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 7 months ago by bionicjoey@lemmy.ca to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

81 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I live in Canada. My girlfriend is Chinese (also living in Canada), and while we are able to communicate via SMS, her mobile carrier isn't the best, and so there have often been issues for us with regular texting. She expressed a strong preference to use WeChat, at least as a backup option for when texting fails us. While I have some pretty significant reservations, it's not the hill I want to die on. So my question is: what can be done to use WeChat without compromising my whole phone? I'm okay with it if our conversations aren't private, but I'd like to know that I'm not giving unfettered access to all of my phone's systems and data to the CCP. What can be done to limit the reach of this ubiquitous app on my device?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] thanks_shakey_snake@lemmy.ca 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

FWIW, WeChat and 微信 are different apps. With a non-Chinese phone number and Google Play Store download, you'll be using the international one (WeChat) instead of the Chinese one (微信). There are still privacy concerns, but it'll be less invasive than what you'd have with the version that people in China are buying their groceries with and stuff.

I'm sorry I don't have advice for how to actually protect yourself, though... I'll be keeping an eye on this thread to see what I can learn.

[–] a1studmuffin@aussie.zone 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Ah, that's interesting and makes sense. So I guess your best option (if you must use WeChat) is to use the international version of the app with as many permissions disabled as possible.

Or maybe look at the Matrix WeChat bridge? https://matrix.org/ecosystem/bridges/wechat/

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I've heard of matrix bridges before but I'm unfamiliar with how to actually set them up and use them. I understand the basic idea is that they relay messages out of matrix and into some other messaging service, but I don't understand how to actually enact that onto the element client on my phone. Matrix is so complicated 😅

[–] a1studmuffin@aussie.zone 4 points 7 months ago

I'll level with you... I've never used Matrix either. 🤣 But all the cool kids around these parts recommend it, and I fundamentally agree with the cause of the project and saw they had the WeChat bridge, so thought I'd mention it.

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's a great point, thanks! I will definitely be using the international one. I expect since I'm getting it through Google Play it'll be constrained based on the OS permissions I give it. And I don't intend to give it any permissions

[–] ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org 2 points 7 months ago

I expect since I'm getting it through Google Play it'll be constrained based on the OS permissions I give it

Getting it through google play or not does not constrain anything more or less.

And I don't intend to give it any permissions

Hopefully it won't require any to be able to keep using it