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WhatsApp chats not private? Meta sued over 'false' encryption claims
25 Jan 2026

An international group of plaintiffs has filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms, Inc., alleging that the tech giant has misled billions of WhatsApp users about the privacy and security of their messages.

The lawsuit, filed in a US District Court in San Francisco on Friday, challenges Meta's long-standing claims that WhatsApp chats are "end-to-end" encrypted.

Plaintiffs allege Meta stores and accesses private communications
Allegations

The plaintiffs, hailing from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Africa, allege that Meta and WhatsApp "store, analyze, and can access virtually all of WhatsApp users' purportedly 'private' communications."

They accuse the companies of defrauding their billions of users worldwide by misrepresenting WhatsApp as a private messaging platform.

The lawsuit also claims that company employees can access these messages.

Meta denies allegations, plans to fight lawsuit
Defense

Meta has strongly denied the allegations, calling the lawsuit "frivolous."

The company plans to fight the case aggressively and pursue sanctions against plaintiffs' counsel.

"Any claim that people's WhatsApp messages are not encrypted is categorically false and absurd," said Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Meta.

He emphasized that WhatsApp has been end-to-end encrypted using the Signal protocol for a decade.

Lawsuit could become class-action case
Class-action status

The lawyers representing the plaintiffs have requested the court to certify the case as a class-action lawsuit.

This could potentially expand it to include large numbers of WhatsApp users worldwide.

Some attorneys listed in the complaint, including those from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and Keller Postman, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this development.