WhatsApp has end-to-end encryption activated by default
Photo: Andre Reinhardt
WhatsApp has had end-to-end encryption (EE2E) for around five years, but when will it be fully implemented in Facebook Messenger and Instagram? Users will have to wait a while for that, as the developer studio announced in a blog post.
E2EE should be included in conversations with the aforementioned services in 2022 at the earliest. At least in Instagram it is possible to activate end-to-end encryption via a special mode. Anyone who uses Facebook Messenger does not yet have this protection.
Facebook: Statement on the subject of encryption
WhatsApp has end-to-end encryption activated by default
Photo: Andre Reinhardt
The US company Facebook Inc. has not been making itself particularly popular lately. Several questionable practices around data protection have already pissed off numerous users. Many WhatsApp users are migrating to competing services such as Signal or Telegram. At least WhatsApp offers end-to-end encryption. A year and a half after the feature was announced, the rollout began in April 2016. With Facebook Messenger and Instagram, users have to remain in the queue for a while.
Despite harsh criticism in the recent past, Facebook Inc. was not in a particularly good mood when it came to security measures. In a blog post (via PhoneArena), the developer studio has now commented on end-to-end encryption for Facebook Messenger and Instagram. They work hard to bring preset end-to-end encryption to all of their messaging services. This method is intended to protect users’ messages and only allow access to the sender and recipient. Not even Facebook itself can access these messages.
E2EE: Facebook is in no rush to integrate
Inevitably, it has a bland aftertaste when the development studio declares that end-to-end encryption means that it will no longer have access itself and that implementation is on the back burner. While they expect to make more progress on standard end-to-end encryption for Messenger and Instagram this year, it would be a long-term project. “We won’t be completely end-to-end encrypted until sometime in 2022 at the earliest,” is the team’s forecast.
Last month, a vulnerability was discovered in WhatsApp that Facebook does not want to fix.
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