I have to have WhatsApp installed on one of my phones for work purposes. It’s not possible to ask my work to give me a phone (I’m on zero-hours contract). I do have two phones - one DeGoogled pixel running CalyxOS and one iPhone XS. The iPhone I use for banking apps and basically anything that ties directly to me. Apple Pay and so on. Then I use the DeGoogled phone for everything else - most communications done over Signal, taking photos etc. This is my daily driver.
My question is this - is there any way to make WhatsApp as private as possible? I’m fine knowing WhatsApp reads all my messages etc (not really fine per se, but what choice do I have) but what I really don’t want is telemetry. So which phone should I install it on? The private one to limit telemetry, or the regular phone to stop any telemetry from my private phone being read? Or is there some way I can remotely host an instance of WhatsApp or something?
You can setup a matrix server and use whatsapp via a bridge.
It is not trivial to set up, and you still need a phone running whatsapp to re-authenticate it every couple weeks.
Run whatsapp on an android vm using quickemu or something and have a vpn for when you need to do that.
ps. Not denying its not trivial but if youre a stubborn spiteful fool (like me) using that spiteful energy for something this isnt a bad place.