WhatsApp and Meta Sued in US Over Claims of Accessing Encrypted Messages
WhatsApp and its parent company Meta Platforms are facing a class action lawsuit in a United States court over allegations that they accessed users’ private messages despite claiming to offer complete end-to-end encryption.
The lawsuit has been filed before a US District Court in California by WhatsApp users from several countries, including India, Brazil, Australia, Mexico and South Africa. The plaintiffs claim that WhatsApp repeatedly assured users that their messages were fully private and could not be read by anyone, including WhatsApp itself. According to them, these assurances were misleading.
The complaint alleges that Meta and WhatsApp store, analyse and can access message content through internal systems. It claims that Meta employees can obtain near real-time access to WhatsApp messages by submitting internal requests, which are approved by company engineers. This, the plaintiffs argue, directly contradicts WhatsApp’s public statements about end-to-end encryption.
WhatsApp has long promoted itself as a secure messaging platform, stating that messages remain only between the sender and the recipient. These claims were also supported by public statements made by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg before the US Senate, where he said that Facebook systems cannot see WhatsApp message content.
However, the lawsuit alleges that even high-profile users such as politicians, celebrities and Meta employees are not fully protected. While access to their messages may be more closely tracked, Meta employees can still access these communications. The plaintiffs argue that this selective monitoring does not change the fact that WhatsApp’s privacy claims are false.
The lawsuit also raises constitutional privacy claims under California law and accuses Meta of unjust enrichment and statutory larceny. It seeks damages, court orders to stop the alleged practices, and a jury trial.
The proposed class action covers WhatsApp users worldwide from April 5, 2016 onwards. Users in the United States and Canada are excluded due to arbitration clauses, while users in the European Union and the United Kingdom are excluded because of different service terms and data protection rules.
The complaint places the case in the wider context of Meta’s past privacy issues, referring to earlier actions taken by US and European regulators. It highlights that WhatsApp’s encryption claims played a key role in its global popularity, especially among journalists, activists and users in countries where private communication is critical for personal safety.
The plaintiffs argue that misleading claims about encryption can have serious consequences for users who rely on WhatsApp for secure and confidential communication.
