Messenger: Meta plans end-to-end encryption – 12/08/2023 – Tech

Meta, owner of Facebook and WhatsApp, announced last Wednesday (6) that it plans to transform Messenger, its chat and voice messaging application, into a fully encrypted service. The measure should reignite the debate on privacy and security in communications.

The company that owns Instagram said the change is part of an overhaul aimed at making Messenger more similar to other messaging apps, such as Apple’s iMessage and Meta’s own WhatsApp.

End-to-end encryption is a way to keep text messages, photos, videos, and phone calls private so that third parties cannot access the content. Technology scrambles messages in such a way that only the sender and recipient can decipher them.

“The extra layer of security provided by end-to-end encryption means the content of your messages and calls with friends and family is protected from the moment they leave your device to the moment they arrive on the recipient’s device,” said Loredana Crisan, vice president of Messenger, in a post.

“This means that no one, including Meta, can see what is sent or said unless you choose to report a message to us,” he said.

Law enforcement officials and technologists have debated encryption controls for decades. On one side, privacy advocates and technology executives believe that people should have spy-free online communications. On the other side, law enforcement and other authorities believe that strong encryption makes it impossible to track pedophiles, terrorists and other criminals.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, has long positioned himself as a privacy advocate. In 2019, he announced a plan to unite and encrypt all of his company’s messaging apps, a move that required years of technical infrastructure work. At the time, he recognized the risk this posed for “really terrible things like child exploitation.”

Meta’s messaging services have recently been the target of intense scrutiny in Europe, where the company was fined billions of euros for violating data privacy laws. Lawmakers also criticized Meta for not allowing its messaging services to work easily with other services like iMessage and Telegram, and ordered the company to make it possible to send a message from Meta’s apps to competitors.

Meta recently reduced the number of its trust and security staff who work on issues such as reducing misinformation and catching pedophiles, suppliers of explosive material or drug and arms traffickers.

End-to-end encryption gained more prominence in 2013 after data leaked by former US National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden appeared to show the extent to which the NSA and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies were accessing users’ communications through companies such as Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and Facebook without their knowledge.

Encrypted messaging apps like Signal have gained popularity, and tech giants like Apple have started wrapping user data in end-to-end encryption. In 2016, WhatsApp introduced full encryption to its service.

In the United States, regulators said the widespread use of encryption in messaging apps facilitated criminal behavior and pedophilia by keeping messages out of the hands of law enforcement.

In a statement in April, the Virtual Global Task Force, a group of 15 law enforcement agencies that includes Interpol and the FBI, said Meta’s decision to encrypt its messaging services “is an example of a choice of intentional design that degrades security systems and weakens the ability to keep child users safe.”

In addition to end-to-end encryption, WhatsApp plans other new features, including a notification that tells you whether someone has opened and read your message and the ability to send voice messages, make messages disappear after 24 hours and edit sent messages.