Meta said today that the company plans to enable end-to-end encryption by default for Messenger by the end of this year. The tech giant is also expanding its toptechtrends.com/2022/08/11/meta-starts-testing-end-to-end-encryption-for-individual-messenger-chats/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>test of end-to-end encryption features to “millions more people’s chats.”
The company has been building end-to-end encryption features in Messenger for years now. However, most of them have been optional or experimental. In 2016, Meta started rolling out end-to-end encryption protection through a “secret conversations” mode. In 2021, it introduced such an option for toptechtrends.com/2021/08/13/facebook-brings-end-to-end-encryption-to-messenger-calls-and-instagram-dms/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>voice and video calls on the app. The company made a similar move to provide toptechtrends.com/2022/08/11/meta-starts-testing-end-to-end-encryption-for-individual-messenger-chats/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>an end-to-end encryption option for group chats and calls in January 2022. In August 2022, Meta started testing toptechtrends.com/2022/01/27/messenger-upgrades-its-end-to-end-encrypted-chat-experience/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>end-to-end encryption for individual chats.
There is increasing pressure on Meta to enable end-to-end encryption so the company or others can’t access users’ chat messages. Protecting individual communications has become more important after a girl and her mother in toptechtrends.com/2023/07/11/teen-and-mom-plead-guilty-to-abortion-charges-based-on-facebook-data/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Nebraska pleaded guilty to abortion charges in July after Meta handed over her DMs to cops. Last year, the police prosecuted the 17-year-old based on data about her toptechtrends.com/2022/08/09/facebook-helps-cops-prosecute-17-year-old-for-abortion/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>direct messages from Messenger provided by Meta soon after toptechtrends.com/2022/06/24/tech-companies-respond-to-u-s-supreme-court-abortion-decision/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>the Supreme Court overturned the Roe. v Wade, a 1973 judgment to make abortion legal.
In a letter to the digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future (via The Verge) earlier this month, Meta’s deputy privacy officer Rob Sherman said that it will roll out end-to-end encryption to Instagram DMs after the Messenger rollout. He also mentioned that “the testing phase has ended up being longer than we anticipated” because of engineering challenges.
In a blog post, the company explained that there were significant challenges in building out encryption features for Messenger. The company said had to shed the old server architecture and build a new way for people to manage their chat history through protections like a PIN.
Meta added that it had to rebuild over 100 features like showing link previews in conversations to accommodate end-to-end encryption. The company’s popular messaging app WhatsApp has had end-to-end encryption for years, and in recent years it has figured out a way to support toptechtrends.com/2021/06/03/zuckerberg-says-whatsapp-will-add-multi-device-support-introduce-view-once-disappearing-feature/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>multi devices for one account without breaking encryption. Meta said that the Messenger team is learning lessons from WhatsApp to implement end-to-end encryption.
After the incident, multiple organizations including Amnesty Internation, Access Now, and Fight for the Future wrote a petition to Meta and other platforms to enable end-to-end encryption for private chats.
Authorities around the world have been toptechtrends.com/2023/07/05/uk-online-safety-bill-risks-e2ee/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>exploring toptechtrends.com/2020/03/08/burn-the-earn-it-act/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>rules that could put encryption in messaging apps at risk. While Meta has toptechtrends.com/2023/03/10/uk-osb-e2ee-warning/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>pushed toptechtrends.com/2021/05/25/whatsapp-sues-india-government/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>back on these proposals through WhatsApp to support end-to-end encryption, it is yet to fully build out these protections for Messenger and Instagram DMs.
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