Whatsapp is privacy invasive, and we likely know that even when using E2EE, this is possible due to metadata tracking.
An easy way to avoid one creepy thing, contact scanning and the creation of “who knows whom” social nets, is to not grant apps permission to your contacts!
But this is not easy, as apps often enforce this, just as they do with
- embedded cameras instead of using the system camera
- embedded galleries instead of the 2 available portals (but Google will soon forbid that)
- asking for unneeded permissions
Only GrapheneOS also allows blocking these permissions
- sensors
- internet
- loading code from memory i.e. from the internet (why would they do that? Is there something they want to hide?)
- debugging their own code to spy on the system behavior
But this app can help everyone on any Android to at least fix this :)
it is really not solved if it’s not about people wanting to reach OP, but OP needing to reach other people, like those at work
Thing about Whatsapp is, you need a phone number to contact them. And that phone number works just as well for calling and SMS. So yes, it is.