Texas Attorney General Files Lawsuit Against Meta Over WhatsApp Encryption Claims

The Texas Attorney General has initiated a lawsuit against Meta, alleging that the company's WhatsApp messaging service does not provide the end-to-end encryption (E2EE) it has claimed. Meta has asserted since at least 2016 that WhatsApp offers robust E2EE, which ensures that messages are encrypted on the sender's device and can only be read by the intended recipient. This means that no other parties, including Meta, should be able to access the plaintext messages. In 2018, CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before two US Senate committees, stating that Meta does not access the content of messages sent via WhatsApp and that the encryption is fully operational. The encryption technology is based on the Signal protocol, which has been endorsed by multiple third-party experts for its effectiveness.