Do you want to optimize WhatsApp for data protection? Add archiving, says Worldr

Since the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of remote working, consumer-grade communication and collaboration apps such as WhatsApp and Microsoft Teams have played an integral role in enabling employees to collaborate.

According to veritas71% of employees worldwide admit to sharing sensitive and business-critical data through instant messaging and business collaboration tools.

While these solutions may be useful to users, they are also poorly optimized for sharing regulated data and expose organizations to legal obligations.

For this reason, zero trust architecture provider worldrannouncing today that it has raised $11 million in seed funding, Worldr designed for WhatsApp, a solution for WhatsApp designed to archive user messages so that they are available during audits.

Worldr for WhatsApp sits on top of the user’s existing WhatsApp implementation and keeps a copy of all communications in a secure storage facility. This means compliance teams can archive messages for audit purposes and comply with SEC, GDPR and FINRA requirements.

Making collaboration compliant

The announcement comes amid a regulatory crackdown on unauthorized messaging apps, with the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission handing out $2 billion to Fines to global financial companies that have failed to monitor employee communications on unauthorized messaging apps such as WhatsApp.

One of the companies was fined, Morgan Stanley was fined $200 million for “use of unapproved personal devices” and “inadequate” record keeping, with the US government alleging drivers had used WhatsApp and personal email address for business communications and evaded proper oversight.

Worldr for Whatsapp aims to address these compliance challenges by adding audit capabilities to the app so that organizations have a clear overview of all communications that take place.

“Our solution enables organizations to track conversations about this app so compliance teams can access, search and retrieve relevant information for regulatory purposes. This means employees can continue to use WhatsApp with their teams and customers while meeting SEC, GDPR and FINRA compliance standards,” said Max Buchan, CEO of Worldr.

The organization’s approach is designed to be easy to implement as employees don’t have to stop using WhatsApp or change their behavior and use other tools.

“It’s difficult to ask employees to change their behavior to improve company security and compliance. Despite the best will in the world, it’s just human behavior to hold on to what we know,” Buchan said.

Now Worldr for WhatsApp is partnering with Worldr’s other collaboration app solutions; Worldr for Microsoft Teams and Worldr for Slack, to help organizations improve the overall security of popular communication apps that users rely on in remote and hybrid work environments.

A look at collaboration software and secure messaging alternatives

With the collaboration software market Expecting to grow from $13.71 billion in 2022 to $18.53 billion in 2027, it’s clear organizations have no intention of moving away from hybrid work practices.

That said, in light of increased regulatory oversight, there are a growing number of enterprise-level communications apps looking to provide greater data sovereignty and isolate organizations from regulatory obligations. Such solutions include: Most important, Element and Rocket chat.

Mattermost, which last raised $50 million in funding in 2019, offers an open source alternative to tools such as Google Hangouts chat, Slack, and Teams, and provides users with channels where they can message, collaborate, and screen sharing, including protection of detailed user and administrator security settings.

Similarly, the secure collaboration provider Element provides users with end-to-end encrypted messages, voice and video, in addition to single sign-on (SSO) and data loss prevention capabilities. Element most recently announced it raised $30 million in financing.

The main difference between these providers and Worldr is that “World takes a fundamentally different approach to building a second layer of privacy, security and compliance infrastructure on top of the tools employees already use,” Buchan said.