Stop using WhatsApp, get Paris-made alternative, French PM tells ministers

In a ministerial circular, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne urged ministers and their top staff to deploy the Olvid app on phones and computers

France’s prime minister asked her cabinet to stop using widespread instant messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram and install widely unknown Olvid, a product of Paris’s start-up scene presenting itself as a more secure alternative.

In a ministerial circular, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne urged ministers and their top staff to deploy the Olvid app on phones and computers, her office told Reuters on Wednesday, confirming French media reports.

Olvid, run by two cryptography researchers and backed by several French tech accelerators, will “replace other instant messaging systems in order to strengthen the security of exchanges that may contain confidential information”, the Prime Minister’s office said.

Continue here: Reuters