WhatsApp Lawsuit Draws Skepticism From Cryptographers, Privacy Lawyers

For years, WhatsApp has assured its roughly three billion customers that their messages are protected by end-to-end encryption—so safe that not even WhatsApp can learn them. 

A new lawsuit difficult that declare is drawing swift skepticism from cryptographers and privateness legal professionals, lots of whom say the allegations increase extra questions on proof and timing than about WhatsApp’s underlying safety.

Technologists contacted by Decrypt mentioned they see no clear technical path for Meta to routinely entry the plaintext of WhatsApp messages, because the lawsuit alleges. 

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Matthew Inexperienced, a professor of cryptography at Johns Hopkins College, mentioned the one life like means WhatsApp messages is likely to be uncovered at scale could be by means of unencrypted cloud backups saved with third-party suppliers like Google or Apple, techniques exterior Meta’s management.

“Backdoors in an app are all the time theoretically attainable,” Inexperienced mentioned. “However they’d usually be detectable by reverse-engineering the app. The truth that the plaintiffs don’t reveal or declare something particular is a reasonably good signal that they don’t know of a backdoor, as a result of discovering a flaw like that might make their case quite a bit stronger.”

Nick Doty, a technologist on the Middle for Democracy and Know-how, took a extra cautious view, telling Decrypt that outsiders lack full visibility into proprietary messaging techniques however that the claims stay unlikely.

“I believe it’s exhausting for any third get together to have the ability to inform you with that a lot confidence,” Doty mentioned. “I might be very shocked if the claims are correct.”

Doty added that encryption will not be a cure-all. Messages will be uncovered with out breaking the encryption itself, for instance, by means of malware put in on a consumer’s machine or by means of customers voluntarily reporting abusive content material. However the lawsuit seems to allege one thing broader, he mentioned.

“What’s described within the temporary description on this go well with doesn’t appear to cowl these circumstances,” Doty mentioned. “It appears to be particular that it’s speaking about all messages, not just a few messages, and messages accessed instantly by Meta.”

Authorized specialists, in the meantime, questioned whether or not the criticism gives the specificity required to outlive early scrutiny in courtroom.

Maria Villegas Bravo, counsel on the Digital Privateness Data Middle, echoed these doubts from a authorized perspective, saying the criticism seems mild on factual element about WhatsApp’s precise software program.

“I’m not seeing any factual allegations or any details about the precise software program itself,” Villegas Bravo mentioned. “I’ve plenty of questions that I might need answered earlier than I might need this lawsuit to proceed.”

Villegas Bravo additionally questioned the timing of the case, noting that it arrives as WhatsApp continues to litigate in opposition to NSO Group, the spyware and adware maker behind Pegasus. 

In that case, WhatsApp accused NSO of abusing its infrastructure to ship malware to customers’ units, an assault vector that didn’t contain breaking WhatsApp’s encryption.

“It’s very suspicious timing that that is taking place as that attraction is occurring, as NSO Group is making an attempt to foyer to get delisted from sanctions within the U.S. authorities,” she mentioned, pointing to the same lawsuit filed in Israel. 

In Might 2025, NSO was ordered to pay greater than $167 million in damages to WhatsApp for unlawfully focusing on over 1,400 customers.

“I don’t assume there’s any benefit on this lawsuit,” Villegas Bravo mentioned.

Rivals weigh in

The case has additionally attracted commentary from rival messaging executives.

Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov wrote on X that the allegations aligned with Telegram’s previous critiques of WhatsApp’s safety, although he supplied no proof tied to the lawsuit itself.

 X proprietor Elon Musk likewise claimed that “WhatsApp will not be safe,” urging customers to change to X’s encrypted messaging characteristic.

Neither govt substantiated their claims, and specialists cautioned in opposition to conflating aggressive rhetoric with technical proof. Nonetheless, the lawsuit lands at a delicate second for Meta, significantly in rising markets the place WhatsApp dominates every day communication. 

India alone accounts for greater than 850 million WhatsApp customers, with Brazil including one other 148 million, making any critical problem to the platform’s privateness guarantees consequential nicely past U.S. courts.

What’s Up?

The skepticism follows the proposed class motion’s submitting in federal courtroom in California on Friday that accuses Meta and its WhatsApp subsidiary of sustaining inner instruments that permit workers to entry personal message content material, regardless of public claims of end-to-end encryption.

The plaintiffs, together with customers from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Africa, search to signify non-U.S. and non-European WhatsApp customers since 2016.

The criticism alleges that Meta “siloed” inner groups in ways in which prevented workers from totally understanding how WhatsApp message entry labored, and that customers are pressured to depend on Meta’s public assurances as a result of WhatsApp’s full messaging stack will not be open-source or independently auditable. 

It claims violations of federal and California privateness legal guidelines, breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and unfair competitors, and factors to previous public statements by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg asserting that the corporate can not learn WhatsApp messages.

Meta has forcefully rejected the allegations. In a press release shared with Decrypt, an organization spokesperson known as the claims “categorically false and absurd.”

“WhatsApp has been end-to-end encrypted utilizing the Sign protocol for a decade,” the spokesperson mentioned. “This lawsuit is a frivolous work of fiction, and we are going to pursue sanctions in opposition to plaintiffs’ counsel.”