Have you received any business inquiries, offers, or questions from colleagues over an instant messenger recently? If you’re like most freelancers, you certainly did. Instant messaging (IM) is booming in work-related communications, and it’s not going away, quite the opposite. Nowadays, voice and video messages are trending. The rise of IM is raising some serious security concerns, though. These messages can be easily tracked and analyzed in-house by the platform provider, and often are, for various reasons. You may not be aware of it, but Messenger, WhatsApp, iMessage, Skype, even Viber and Telegram, all have security issues. There’s no perfect and 100% safe solution, but if you consult the Secure Messaging Apps Comparison website, some instant messengers are much safer than others (Signal, to name just the one we use in our team). The site hasn’t been updated for a while, so take it a mere introduction to the subject. A good practice would perhaps be to keep on using any general IM for non-confidential chats but switching to a safer channel with your clients and teams.
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