2025 update: Meta fully launched its end-to-end encryption on Messenger for everyone in 2024, and all chats on the platform are now encrypted by default. This protects your privacy by ensuring only you and the person you’re chatting with can see your conversations. In theory, not even Meta has access to your messages, unless someone in the chat chooses to report them. You can also turn on the secure storage feature on Messenger to back up your encrypted chat history to a secure cloud server.
Facebook announced it will begin testing end-to-end encryption on individual Messenger chats as well as a secure backup feature for end-to-end encrypted chats. Facebook Messenger chats are currently unencrypted as a default, but users can opt in to make their messages end-to-end encrypted in their Facebook settings.
This move comes shortly after Facebook received public backlash for handing over user data, including Messenger chats, to Nebraskan authorities for evidence in a case.
A Limited Test Case
While Facebook doesn’t have the best reputation for privacy measures, its end-to-end encryption is theoretically secure and keeps both the company and outsiders from seeing your private messages. Facebook spokesperson Alex Dziedzan said the move was “not a response to any law enforcement requests” or, presumably, the resulting backlash stemming from it.
Dziedzan also said the process to implement E2EE is complicated and that this test will be limited to a couple of hundred users for now. That way, the company can make sure that its systems are working properly. Apparently Facebook’s parent company, Meta, had planned on releasing the E2EE update in 2022, but the full release has been pushed into 2023.
Facebook Messenger also currently stores your message history on your device. Facebook is looking into providing a secure cloud-based backup solution so you can restore your message history if you lose it or switch devices. The company maintains that it won’t have access to encrypted private messages through the secure backup storage.
Facebook hasn’t disclosed the full extent of information it handed over to authorities in the Nebraska case. The details of the warrant (first published by Motherboard), however, reveal that Facebook handed over the account’s private messages, photos, wall postings, friend list with Facebook IDs, and profile contact information.
Facebook handing over user data to the police is yet another reminder that people don’t own their personal data, companies do. It’s caused a renewed effort from experts and human rights organizations in calling for more limits on the data companies can collect and what they can do with it.
Experts Call For Limits on Data Stored by Tech Companies
“The only way for companies like Facebook to meaningfully protect people is for them to ensure that they do not have access to user data or communications when a law enforcement agency comes knocking,” Evan Greer, the director of the digital rights group Fight for the Future, told The Guardian.
In theory, end-to-end encryption would have prevented Facebook from handing over that account’s private messages. Unfortunately, most users don’t opt in to have encryption turned on, but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t automatically be on from the start.
While this is a good move on Facebook’s part, experts point out that the company still collects a host of other personal data it can hand over to authorities. That’s why digital rights groups are advocating for more significant limits on the data companies collect and retain. Until companies are held in check, people won’t have control over who gets access to their private information, messages, and media.
It’s possible to limit data collection, though, by only using encrypted messengers, private browsers, turning on privacy settings, and using CyberGhost VPN to encrypt your connection.
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