Like Meta-owned WhatsApp, the company’s other major venture, Facebook Messenger, is set to soon switch to end-to-end encryption by default. The company is currently testing Messenger’s privacy feature, as announced in a recent press release.
If end-to-end encryption is implemented for Messenger, only the sender of the message and the recipient will be able to see it, taking away the ability even for Facebook itself to view the contents of chats.
The news is somewhat ironic, as it comes just a day after Facebook turned over the history of mother-daughter abortion-related chats to the police. Facebook sparked a public outcry in response to the news, although it said the content of the chat was unknown to the company. “We received valid legal warrants from local law enforcement on June 7, prior to the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. The orders do not mention abortion at all,” the company wrote.
In addition to end-to-end encryption, Facebook is also testing a “secure storage feature” to back up encrypted messages in the cloud and allow them to be transferred between devices. “As with end-to-end encrypted chats, secure storage means we won’t have access to your messages unless you choose to report them to us,” the company wrote. “Secure Storage will be the default way to protect your end-to-end encrypted Messenger conversation history, and you’ll have multiple options to recover your messages if you choose to do so.”
Users will access their encrypted chat history via a PIN or generated code and it will be the user’s responsibility to save it. Facebook said it’s testing Secure Storage this week on Android and iOS.
Other announcements include syncing deleted messages across devices, removing disappearing mode on Messenger, advanced Instagram chat features, and more. Read the company’s news here.
Source: Facebook
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