WhatsApp urges people to step up to a new era of personal privacy with automatic end-to-end encryption in one of its latest commercials, titled “A New Era of Privacy”.
The 60-second ad aims to raise awareness about the dangers of unencrypted texts by showing several people in a local shipping center, ready to send their mail, who are shocked to see the center employee rolling up their letters and attaching them to a carrier pigeon. Some of the customers don’t hesitate to express their thoughts. “This is crazy!” exclaims one woman. “You know what else is crazy? That SMS text that he’s sending… it’s unencrypted,” declares the mail worker, pointing out thus that their texts are as vulnerable as any piece of mail delivered through a pigeon.
“5.5 billion unencrypted texts are sent every day. With WhatsApp, your messages won’t be one of them” onscreen lines appearing like WhatsApp messages read at the end of the video. “Message privately with end-to-end encryption” another line reads.
The song playing in the background is the 1971 Billboard charting hit Can You Get To That by American funk rock band Funkadelic, from their third studio album, “Maggot Brain”.
