Meta has claimed for years that the conversations on WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted and thus cannot be seen by anyone, including the platform itself. That claim, however, has come into question with a new lawsuit where an international group of plaintiffs has sued the company, alleging that it made false claims about the privacy and security of WhatsApp.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the US District Court in San Francisco on Friday, alleges that Meta's privacy claims are false, according to a Bloomberg report. The plaintiffs argue that Meta and WhatsApp can “store, analyze, and can access virtually all of WhatsApp users’ purportedly ‘private’ communications”.
Why is Meta being sued?
The plaintiffs argue that Meta can access virtually all of WhatsApp users’ purportedly ‘private’ communications. They also accused the company and its leaders of defrauding WhatsApp's billions of users worldwide.
They also claim that Meta stores the substance of users' communications and that its workers can get access to them. The plaintiffs from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa cited “whistleblowers” as their source for helping bring this information to light.
The lawyers for the plaintiffs have requested the court to certify a class-action lawsuit.
Meanwhile, a Meta spokesperson, while reacting to the lawsuit to Bloomberg, called it “frivolous” while noting that the company will “pursue sanctions against plaintiffs’ counsel.”
“Any claim that people’s WhatsApp messages are not encrypted is categorically false and absurd,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told the publication. “WhatsApp has been end-to-end encrypted using the Signal protocol for a decade. This lawsuit is a frivolous work of fiction.”
Notably, Meta had also been sued in September last year by its former head of security Attaullah Baig who alleged that WhatsApp contained “systemic cybersecurity failures” that could potentially compromise user privacy.
Baig had also claimed that he discovered that approximately 1,500 WhatsApp engineers had unrestricted access to user data, including sensitive personal information. He also stated that employees “could move or steal such data without detection or audit trail.”
Meta had also drawn backlash last year after the company announced its plans to show hyperpersonalized ads to users based on their conversations with the Meta AI chatbot across WhatsApp, Instagram and its other apps. Meanwhile, the company has also begun showing ads to users on the status update on WhatsApp.
In India, Meta had been fined ₹213.14 crore over the company's 2021 policy which forced users to share data with other Meta apps like Facebook and Instagram for advertising purposes.