Wednesday, 27 May 2026
AP PHOTO
Iran urges citizens to remove WhatsApp
TEHRAN — Iranian state television on Tuesday called on citizens to uninstall WhatsApp from their smartphones, claiming — without presenting concrete evidence — that the messaging app collects user data to transmit to Israel.
WhatsApp responded by expressing concern that these “false reports” could be used as a pretext to block the platform at a critical time for users. The company emphasized its use of end-to-end encryption, which ensures that messages remain private and cannot be read by any intermediaries, according to The Associated Press.
“We do not track your exact location, we don’t maintain logs of who is messaging whom, and we do not monitor people’s private conversations,” WhatsApp stated. “No bulk information is provided to any government.”
End-to-end encryption means that messages are encrypted so only the sender and intended recipient can access their content. If intercepted, the message appears as unintelligible gibberish unless decrypted with the proper key.
WhatsApp is owned by Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
Iran has a history of blocking various social media sites, though many users continue to access them through proxies and virtual private networks (VPNs). WhatsApp and Google Play were both banned in 2022 during widespread protests sparked by the death of a woman in custody of the country’s morality police—a ban that was lifted late last year.
WhatsApp has remained one of Iran’s most widely used messaging services, alongside Instagram and Telegram.