A lawsuit has been filed in the San Francisco federal court against Meta Platforms, where an international group of plaintiffs claims that the company misled WhatsApp users about the privacy level of their messages. According to Bloomberg,
the complaint states that Meta and WhatsApp "store, analyze, and have the ability to access nearly all WhatsApp chats marketed as private". The plaintiffs accuse the company of fraud against billions of users.
Meta, which acquired WhatsApp in 2014, rejected these allegations. Company representative Andy Stone described the lawsuit as "ridiculous" and stated that the company would seek sanctions against the plaintiffs' lawyers. He claimed that assertions about the lack of encryption are "categorically false and absurd". Stone emphasized that WhatsApp has been using the Signal protocol for end-to-end encryption for ten years, ensuring that only the sender and receiver have access to the messages.
The lawsuit was filed by citizens of Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Africa. The document states that Meta retains the content of messages and that company employees could access them. "Whistleblowers" are mentioned as sources of information, but their names are not disclosed.
It is worth noting that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission continues its legal battle against Meta over monopoly concerns in the social media market. The regulator insists that Meta maintains dominance in the personal social networking market through the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp.