Don’t kid yourself. There is no such thing as online security. Everything you do online is known, so don’t even bother trying to fool yourself otherwise. Yes, I know what Signal and WhatsApp claim. It doesn’t matter, because they are highly incentivized, and quite possibly legally obligated, to lie to you about it.
US federal authorities are investigating allegations that staff at WhatsApp owner Meta Platforms Inc. had access to message content despite the company marketing the app as protected by end-to-end encryption, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
Special agents from the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security have been examining claims from former Meta contractors who alleged that they and staff at Meta had “unfettered access” to WhatsApp messages.
One contractor told an investigator that a Facebook team employee confirmed they could “go back a ways into WhatsApp (encrypted) messages,” including in criminal cases, according to an agent’s report reviewed by Bloomberg.
WhatsApp, which was acquired by Meta in 2014, insists on its website that “no one outside of the chat, not even WhatsApp, can read, listen to, or share” what a user says.”
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone had also denied the allegations, stating that “what these individuals claim is not possible because WhatsApp, its employees, and its contractors, cannot access people’s encrypted communications.”
The only thing the US authorities care about it is that they, too, have access to the unencrypted files.