A US lawsuit calls into question WhatsApp’s central security claim. Meta should have access to private chats despite the promise of encryption.
WhatsApp is on trial in the US over its handling of supposedly private chats. In a class action lawsuit from several countries, the parent company Meta is accused of accessing communication content even though users are advertised with end-to-end encryption.
The US News Company “Bloomberg” reports that the lawsuit calls into question the core of the messenger’s previous security promise.
Accusation: Access to WhatsApp content despite encryption
The plaintiffs from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa filed their lawsuit in a US federal court. According to the court documents referred to by “Bloomberg”, WhatsApp employees should be able to view the content of chats via internal “Task” widgets under certain conditions. These tools are therefore integrated into processes such as moderation, processing user complaints and operational tasks.
The lawsuit also alleges that Meta is capable of producing large amounts of over the Messenger service to store, analyze and access sent messages. This happens even though users see a notice when opening a conversation that “only people in this chat” can read or listen to messages. The plaintiffs argue that this statement is “materially false” and therefore misleading, according to documents obtained through Bloomberg.
Rejection by Meta: The company threatens sanctions for the plaintiffs’ lawyers
Meta firmly rejects all allegations. A company spokesman called the lawsuit “frivolous” and said it would “pursue sanctions against plaintiffs’ attorneys,” according to court documents.
The spokesman literally stated that it was “categorically false and absurd” to claim that WhatsApp messages are not encrypted, adding: “The lawsuit is a frivolous fantasy.”
Meta refers to signal encryption in WhatsApp messages
Meta points out that Whatsapp has been using so-called signal encryption for years. According to the company, messages are consistently secured so that only the sender and recipient can read the content.
The plaintiffs do not directly question this technical principle, but accuse Meta of inadequately disclosing the practical access and evaluation options to users.
- Meta only receives access to content if you consciously address Meta AI yourself.
- Meta also gets access if another person in your group includes the Meta AI.
- In these cases, Meta can read and process the affected messages and the context.
- The AI does not automatically or secretly scan your chats.
- For users in the EU, the data entered will not be used to train the AI.
For improved protection, users can do the following:
- You can activate “Enhanced Chat Privacy” per chat.
- This setting completely prevents the Meta AI from being addressed or invited in this chat.
- Do not share sensitive information such as passwords, financial information, or health information with the AI.
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