Texas AG Sues Meta Over WhatsApp Encryption Claims

The Texas Attorney General has initiated a lawsuit against Meta, alleging that WhatsApp does not provide the promised end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for its messaging service, which is used by over 3 billion people. Since 2016, Meta has claimed that WhatsApp messages are encrypted, ensuring that only the sender and receiver can access their content. The lawsuit asserts that Meta can access unencrypted message contents, contrary to its public statements.

The complaint references a Bloomberg article, which reported that previous investigations suggested Meta could view WhatsApp messages. Experts in cryptography and security have expressed skepticism about the claims, asserting that current evidence does not support the lawsuit's allegations.

They noted that reverse engineering of WhatsApp has shown it to function securely and that findings from a recent analysis corroborated Meta's encryption promises, though a design flaw allowing unauthorized group chat access was identified.