This is the process step by step from receiving the order until it executes it

That Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz Deleted his WhatsApp messages on October 16 has generated a lot of interest in how the deletion of messages in the Chat app works. An application that advocates Privacy and for encryption to end so that the messages are always covered in front of third parties.

In fact, the chat app also offers the possibility that all messages are They delete at the hours or the days so that the sensitive data that could be sent or contain simply are erased. This was one of the most interesting novelties of the app just less than four years ago.

WhatsApp has been exponentially improving in this sense of what it was years ago in which it was a more ‘simple’ application. Also forced by the Digital Services Law (DSA) that puts in The objective of privacy and security of messages that are part of the privacy of people; And it is not easy for the chat app owned by Mark Zuckerberg crossing certain lines related to generative artificial intelligence.

There is behind this app a protocol linked to security and privacy Already established common to anyone who uses it daily, either for daily and personal use as if it is for the professional. And in this case WhatsApp explains how messages are deleted from their support page.

In fact, in the same page It gives information on how the encryption is ended to end and as security and privacy are part of the app’s DNA. And in this sense it is also quite clear: “The encryption guarantees that only you and the person with whom you communicate can read or listen to what is sent, and that no one else, not even WhatsApp, can do it.”

This system is based on a ‘padlock’ linked to the messages, which only access the recipient and the issuer by having the special key to unlock and read them. Everything happens automatically as it happens with the elimination of these messages.

WhatsApp offers two options To delete messages and one of them is the deletion of the message only for the user, and the second the ability to erase the message for all; That is, the message found in the user’s app such as the one that has reached the receptor’s mobile. The interesting thing comes with the message that is deleted for all and that has some peculiarities:

• You can only erase up to 60 hours after being sent.
• Delete the message from both mobiles.
• Instead appears the notice: “This message has been eliminated.”
• If someone cited or answered the message (when mentioning) it could appear without being deleted.
• It could appear in the mobile notifications history.

And this is the internal process of the app When the user erases a message in the app and so you can understand each of the steps it does:

• When “eliminated for everyone”the app marks the message as deleted from the local mobile database; He does not delete it physically from the memory immediately, but replaces it by the notice “This message was eliminated.”
• WhatsApp sends a signal to your servers for the elimination of the message including: Unique identification of the message (Message ID), recipient or group where it was sent and a time mark to verify if it is still within the limit time to remove it.
• When the WhatsApp server receives the applicationWhat it does is send a notification to all the devices that received the message.
• These devices do is: They look for the message in their local database, replaces it with the notice “This message was deleted”, and eliminates the real content of the message so that it cannot be recovered by the app in normal way.

There is another point to take into account: If the recipient had no connection, the deletion is processed when he has it again. And so is the process of detained way of how WhatsApp makes the message deleted when the user requests from their mobile.