Meta announced Wednesday that it plans to turn Messenger, its global chat and voice messaging app, into a fully encrypted service, a move that will reignite the debate over privacy and security in communications. .
The Silicon Valley company, which also owns Facebook and Instagram, said the changes are part of an overhaul aimed at bringing Messenger closer to other messaging apps, including Apple’s iMessage and Meta’s other messaging service, WhatsApp.
End-to-end encryption is a way to protect the privacy of your texts, photos, videos, and calls and prevent third parties from accessing your content. This technology scrambles the message so that only the sender and the intended recipient can decipher it.
“End-to-end encryption provides an extra layer of security, meaning the contents of your messages and calls with friends and family are protected from the moment they leave your device to the moment they reach your recipient’s device. ” says Loredana Crisan. the Messenger vice president said in a post. “This means that no one, including Meta, can see what you send or say unless you choose to report the message to us.”
Law enforcement officials and technologists have debated encryption management for decades. On the one hand, privacy advocates and technology executives believe that people should be able to communicate online without prying eyes. On the other hand, law enforcement and other authorities believe that strong encryption makes it impossible to track child predators, terrorists, and other criminals.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long positioned himself as a privacy advocate. In 2019, he announced plans to unify and encrypt all of the company’s messaging apps. This required years of technical infrastructure work. At the time, he acknowledged the risk it could lead to “really bad things like child exploitation.”
Meta’s messaging service has recently come under particular scrutiny in Europe, where the company has been fined billions of euros for breaches of data privacy laws. Lawmakers also criticized Meta for not allowing its messaging service to easily integrate with other services such as iMessage and Telegram, and urged the company to allow competitors to send messages from their apps. ordered.
Meta recently cut the number of trust and safety employees who work on issues such as reducing misinformation and catching child predators, purveyors of exploitative material, and drug and weapons traffickers.
End-to-end encryption means the data leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. When it was revealed in 2013 that this had been a sign that the truth was true, it attracted even more attention. Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc. without their knowledge.
Encrypted messaging apps like Signal have grown in popularity, and tech giants like Apple have started wrapping user data with end-to-end encryption. In 2016, WhatsApp introduced full encryption to its service.
In the United States, the use of encryption in messaging apps is expanding, with regulators saying it is facilitating criminal activity and child predation by keeping messages beyond the reach of law enforcement. There is.
The Virtual Global Task Force, a group of 15 law enforcement agencies including Interpol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said in an April statement that Meta’s decision to encrypt its messaging service “degrades security systems and security. “This is an example of an intentional design choice.” It weakens the ability to keep child users safe. ”
In addition to end-to-end encryption, Messenger also offers notifications that let you know if someone has opened and read your messages, the ability to send voice memos, the ability to hide messages after 24 hours, and the ability to edit sent messages. We are also planning other new features. Messenger users send over 1.3 billion photos and videos to their girlfriends each day on the app.