Facebook Messenger supports end-to-end encryption, but it’s disabled by default. Meta has now made this feature available to more people ahead of a global rollout.
- What is happening? Meta’s has made Messenger’s end-to-end encryption available to more people than before in the wake of the high-profile Nebraska abortion case.
- Why care? Messenger supports end-to-end encryption, but this is currently a per-chat feature that must be manually enabled. Meta continues to work on making this feature enabled by default for all Messenger and Instagram users worldwide.
- What to do? Keep in mind that right now Facebook Messenger does not have end-to-end encryption by default for all users. To use secure chat, all chat participants must use end-to-end encryption. If you have this feature, consider testing encryption with a friend who also has it.
Messenger end-to-end encryption expands
Jason Kebler and Anna Merlan, reporting for Motherboard:
A 17-year-old girl and her mother were charged with a number of felonies and misdemeanors after an apparent medical abortion at home in Nebraska. The state’s case is based on evidence from a teen’s private Facebook messages, obtained directly from Facebook by court order, which show that the mother and daughter allegedly bought abortion drugs online and then disposed of the fetus’s body.
According to The Verge, the incident prompted Meta to expand end-to-end encryption testing on Messenger. End-to-end encryption will now be enabled by default for more chats between select users. As a result, these users will not need to register to use secure messaging. Meta plans to complete a “global rollout of end-to-end encryption by default for private messages and calls”in 2023.
Meanwhile, the company has begun testing a feature called “secure storage”that will allow users to restore their chat history when they install Messenger on a new device. Backups can be locked with a PIN, and this feature is designed to prevent the company or anyone else from reading their contents.
End-to-end encryption makes messages and attachments unreadable to anyone but the sender and intended recipient(s). Messenger chats are not currently encrypted by default, so hackers, ISPs, and other intruders can listen in on them. And law enforcement can easily extract your chats by court order.
How Encryption Works in Messenger Now
Messenger gained the ability to enable end-to-end encryption for certain chats and calls in January 2022, but the feature has been in testing since at least 2016. -contact base, which is a hassle. You can do this in two ways.
First, you can select “Enable Disappear Mode”by swiping up in an existing chat. In Disappear mode, all messages will automatically disappear after the chat is closed. And secondly, you can turn on the “Enable Secret Conversations” option by clicking on the padlock icon when starting a new conversation.
Our opinion: Better late than ever
Implementing end-to-end encryption by default is the right decision. People are lazy and companies can’t count on user activity. So if we can’t manually turn on encryption, Meta should turn it on for everyone and be done with it. Read: How to enable chat thread encryption in Facebook Messenger
We don’t think Meta should give people the ability to toggle end-to-end encryption for all chats. Encryption shouldn’t have an on/off switch, it’s one of those features that should just “just work”to protect the content of your messages without having to worry about toggles and toggles.
Meta is preparing its competitor iMessage
Here’s how Apple’s iMessage works – there’s no switch to turn end-to-end encryption on or off, it’s on and can’t be turned off. Now, Mark Zuckerberg stated a few years ago that Meta would consolidate all of its various chat services into a single iMessage-like platform that could also include SMS functionality.
The company has since merged Instagram and Messenger chats and quickly added a bunch of super-useful features to WhatsApp. And now it looks like the infrastructure of Instagram and Messenger is ready to roll out end-to-end encryption for all users around the world and protect our chats from prying eyes.