Meta accused of having its developers access to WhatsApp users' chats
Meta Corporation is being sued over claims that its employees can allegedly access WhatsApp users' messages, despite end-to-end encryption.
Meta Corporation is being sued over claims that its employees can allegedly access WhatsApp users' messages, despite end-to-end encryption.
According to Bloomberg, the lawsuit was filed on Friday in U.S. federal court in San Francisco. Plaintiffs from several countries claim that Meta Platforms and WhatsApp misled users about the service’s true level of privacy. WhatsApp presents end-to-end encryption as a mode in which messages are accessible only to the sender and recipient, and the service’s interface contains language like «only people in this chat can read, listen to, or share» the content.
At the same time, the lawsuit claims the opposite: Meta and WhatsApp allegedly «store, analyze, and can access» users' communications, and the companies' employees have the technical ability to view them. It is separately mentioned that information about this, according to the plaintiffs, was helped to reveal by «whistleblowers,» but the material does not specify who exactly is meant.
Meta called the lawsuit «ridiculous» and said it would seek sanctions against the plaintiffs’ lawyers. Company spokesman Andy Stone told Bloomberg that the claims about the lack of encryption were «categorically false,» and WhatsApp has been using the Signal protocol for end-to-end encryption for about a decade.
Meta acquired WhatsApp in 2014, after which the messaging app has been aggressively promoting privacy as a key benefit. In the new lawsuit, the plaintiffs are asking the court to grant the case class action status, which could potentially broaden the scope of participants and increase the legal risks for the company if the court finds its privacy claims misleading.
Previously, dev.ua wrote about how Meta is preparing new security tools for WhatsApp and Messenger: users will receive prompts during risky actions and will be able to block attackers faster.
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