In a high-stakes lawsuit that aims to demolish one of Meta's biggest privacy-related claims, plaintiffs assert that WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption is a meaningless gimmick and that both Meta and WhatsApp retain the ability to access users' private messages.
An international group of plaintiffs has cited "whistleblowers" to allege in a US District Court in San Francisco that Meta and WhatsApp can access the users' private messages
Meta has long touted WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption feature that supposedly ensures user privacy by preventing anyone from snooping in on chats. In fact, in 2021, the company extended its end-to-end encryption to cloud backups as well.
However, an international group of plaintiffs, hailing from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Africa, has now cited "whistleblowers" to allege in a lawsuit that Meta and WhatsApp "store, analyze, and can access virtually all of WhatsApp users' purportedly 'private' communications."
Basically, the litigants argue that Meta and WhatsApp can access the "substance" of user messages, but have refused to elaborate on the exact modus operandi or the role that supposed whistleblowers played in this alleged discovery.
The case has now been filed in a US District Court in San Francisco, with the plaintiffs petitioning for a class-action status. For its part, Meta has termed these claims as "categorically false and absurd" and that the lawsuit is a "frivolous work of fiction." The company's spokesperson has also reiterated that "WhatsApp has been end-to-end encrypted using the Signal protocol for a decade."
About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.
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