The company, which is facing significant blowback, has since sought to emphasize that the "warrants did not mention abortion at all" and that "police were at that time investigating the alleged illegal burning and burial of a stillborn infant." state of Nebraska, something that was made possible only because conversations on Messenger are still stored in cleartext. They also come in the immediate aftermath of news that Meta shared Messenger chats with law enforcement in a criminal case concerning a 17-year-old's abortion in the U.S. As it stands, WhatsApp is the only Meta product to be end-to-end encrypted out of the box (unless the messages are reported). The updates arrive ahead of a global rollout of default end-to-end encryption for personal messages and calls across Instagram and Messenger in 2023. In addition, it's extending the Code Verify safeguards it introduced earlier this March to ensure the integrity of WhatsApp Web to include the desktop web version of Messenger. What's more, the encrypted backup feature is being ported over to Messenger too in the form of a feature it calls Secure Storage that allows users to create a PIN or a code, which can then be used to restore the chats on a new device.įurther changes encompass an expansion of E2EE trials on Instagram and the removal of vanish mode in Messenger while retaining disappearing messages, which lets messages be automatically erased after a chosen time period. It's worth pointing out that Meta flipped the switch on E2EE chats in Messenger in January 2022 on an opt-in basis, meaning it requires users to explicitly turn it on to avail the privacy and security guarantees. "This is because with end-to-end encryption, your messages are secured with a lock, and only the recipient and you have the special key needed to unlock and read them," Meta-owned WhatsApp explains in its documentation. The Apple move comes following years of standoffs involving technology firms and law enforcement.įBI officials have warned that so-called "end to end encryption," where only the user and recipient can read messages, can protect criminals, terrorists and pornographers even when authorities have a legal warrant for an investigation.E2EE is a secure communication mechanism that scrambles data in transit and prevents third-parties from unauthorizedly accessing information sent from one endpoint to another, including Meta. Nonetheless, encryption and private specialists warned the tool could be exploited for other purposes, potentially opening a door to mass surveillance. The move represents a major shift for Apple, which has until recently resisted efforts to weaken its encryption that prevents third parties from seeing private messages.Īpple argued in a technical paper that the technology developed by cryptographic experts "is secure, and is expressly designed to preserve user privacy." "We'll also kick off a limited test with adults in certain countries that lets them opt-in to end-to-end encrypted messages and calls for one-on-one conversations on Instagram," Kricheli said.Īpple's recent announcement that it would scan encrypted messages for evidence of child sexual abuse has revived debate on online encryption and privacy, raising fears the same technology could be used for government surveillance. "People expect their messaging apps to be secure and private," Kricheli said.įacebook disclosed that it is testing encrypting group chats and calls on Messenger, as well as direct messages at its image-centric Instagram social network. "This means that nobody else, including Facebook, can see or listen to what's sent or said."Įnd-to-end encryption is already widely used by apps including Facebook-owned WhatsApp and is becoming an industry standard. "The content of your messages and calls in an end-to-end encrypted conversation is protected from the moment it leaves your device to the moment it reaches the receiver's device," Messenger director of product management Ruth Kricheli said in a blog post. The number of audio or video calls made on Messenger has surged since then to more than 150 million daily, prompting Facebook to add the option of scrambling exchanges from one end to the other to prevent snooping. The move comes as the sanctity of data on smartphones becomes an increasingly sensitive topic.Įncrypting text chats on Messenger has been an option since 2016.
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