Users file lawsuit challenging WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption:Petition claims Meta can access users’ private chats on WhatsApp; company dismisses allegations as false

Meta, the parent company of the world’s most popular messaging app WhatsApp, is once again facing allegations over user privacy. A new lawsuit filed in a federal court in San Francisco claims that the company can access users’ chats even though it promotes them as fully secure through end-to-end encryption (E2E). A group of users from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa has filed this class-action lawsuit. The case, filed in a US court, alleges that Meta and WhatsApp are misleading billions of users in the name of security. The petitioners claim that the company has the ability to store, analyse and access almost all private conversations. Meta has denied these allegations. A company spokesperson said the lawsuit is completely baseless and that Meta will seek legal action against the petitioners’ lawyer. What are the main allegations? The lawsuit argues that WhatsApp’s claim that only the sender and receiver can read messages is false. According to the petitioners, Meta has the technology and access required to view users’ messages. The complaint also cites whistleblowers who allege that Meta employees can access user data when required. Meta calls the lawsuit ‘fiction’ Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said, “The claim that people’s WhatsApp messages are not encrypted is completely false and absurd.” He added that WhatsApp has been using the Signal Protocol for over a decade, which is considered a global standard for security. The company has described the lawsuit as fiction. Users from five countries involved India is among the countries involved in this legal action, along with Australia, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. If the court approves it as a class-action suit, millions of users worldwide could fall under its scope, and Meta may face heavy fines in the future. What is end-to-end encryption? WhatsApp claims that every chat on its app is protected by end-to-end encryption. This means that when a message is sent, it is converted into a secret code that only the receiver’s phone can decode. The company says that neither WhatsApp nor its parent company Meta can read these messages. The latest lawsuit questions the truth of this claim. Meta’s privacy policy has faced controversy before Meta (formerly Facebook) has a controversial privacy track record. In 2020, the company was fined 5 billion dollars following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Additionally, in September 2025, former WhatsApp security head Ataullah Beg alleged that around 1,500 engineers had uncontrolled access to users’ data.