Meta announced plans to roll out default end-to-end encryption for its Messenger product by the end of 2023, the company confirmed in a blog post.
“Starting today, millions more people’s chats on Messenger will be upgraded to stronger encryption standards as part of our ongoing end-to-end encryption (E2EE) testing,” Meta’s blog read.
“We remain on track to launch default E2EE for one-to-one friends and family chats on Messenger by the end of the year.”
Earlier this month, the tech giant affirmed this commitment in a letter, in which its deputy privacy officer, Rob Sherman, said that adding the additional layer is currently being tested in both Messenger and Instagram chats.
“We remain committed to rolling our default end-to-end encryption for private conversations on Messenger in 2023, and shortly afterward for Instagram,” Sherman wrote.
Meta’s official noted: “End-to-end encryption is the best technology we have today to protect people’s messages, and we also see it as an important reason why people might choose to use our products over competitors’.”
Pressure for major social platforms to implement default DM encryption has grown over the last year following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last summer.
Months after the reversal, a Nebraska teenager and her mother were charged with performing an illegal abortion after police received their private chat history from Meta.
In July, the teenager was sentenced to 90 days in jail after pleading guilty to additional charges related to concealing human remains.
“Our hearts broke watching the case of the Nebraska teenager who was just jailed for self-managing an abortion, knowing that the lack of default end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger played a role in her criminalization,” Leila Nashashibi, Fight for the Future campaigner, said in a statement.
