• General
  • Whatsapp & Google Play Services

I need Whatsapp for some groups I'm in. I don't really care about the privacy of these group conversations, so if Whatsapp is collecting that, whatever. My question is about Play services needing SMS permission to use the app. What are the consequences of this? Can Google read all of my texts?

    fluffheadman Hi there. Google Play Services doesn't need SMS permission to run WhatsApp. It asks for it only once but you don't need to give it. Google Play Services is trying to read your SMS so it can auto fill your SMS confirmation code when you set up WhatsApp. Just ignore the request, wait for the SMS code to arrive and manually copy it into WhatsApp.

    P.S. these days group chats are end to end encrypted in WhatsApp.

      treequell interesting, when I was entering my phone number it wouldn't allow me to proceed without giving SMS permission. Maybe I can disable it now.

        7 months later

        i was able to get around this just now (found this thread via search engine) by disabling google play and restarting the phone verification process. i actually got a text instead of it just telling me to give gplay services SMS permissions.