Are your WhatsApp chats really private and protected? Lawsuit in US court says Meta can read

Meta is back in court, and this time, it’s over claims that the world’s most popular messaging app might not be as private as it seems. An international group of plaintiffs, reported Bloomberg, has sued Meta Platforms, Inc, alleging that the company has misled billions of WhatsApp users about the true nature of its “end-to-end encryption.”

Filed on Friday in the US District Court in San Francisco, the lawsuit accuses Meta and its executives of making false claims about the security and privacy of WhatsApp chats, which the company has long marketed as fully encrypted and inaccessible even to Meta itself.

The plaintiffs, hailing from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Africa, allege that Meta’s promise of private messaging is a “fiction” that conceals the company’s ability to access and analyse users’ supposedly secure conversations.

WhatsApp’s privacy promise under fire

If you’ve ever opened a WhatsApp chat, you’ve likely seen the message, “Only people in this chat can read, listen to, or share these messages.” It’s a comforting reassurance, built on the foundation of end-to-end encryption, a feature that WhatsApp claims ensures only the sender and recipient can view messages.

But according to the new lawsuit, that message might not tell the full story. The plaintiffs allege that Meta and WhatsApp actually store, analyse, and can access virtually all user communications, despite publicly stating otherwise.

The complaint suggests that Meta’s privacy claims are “knowingly false” and amount to widespread consumer deception on a global scale.

The group even claims that whistleblowers have come forward with evidence of how Meta handles user data behind the scenes, though the complaint does not name them or provide details about their disclosures. The case could turn into a class-action suit, with lawyers from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and Keller Postman among those representing the plaintiffs.

Meta, of course, is pushing back. “Any claim that people’s WhatsApp messages are not encrypted is categorically false and absurd,” said Meta spokesperson Andy Stone in an email response to Bloomberg. “WhatsApp has been end-to-end encrypted using the Signal protocol for a decade. This lawsuit is a frivolous work of fiction.” He added that Meta will seek sanctions against the plaintiffs’ counsel, calling the lawsuit baseless.

A familiar privacy storm

For Meta, privacy controversies are nothing new. From the Cambridge Analytica scandal to repeated scrutiny over how it handles user data across Facebook and Instagram, the company has spent years trying to rebuild trust. WhatsApp has often been positioned as Meta’s privacy-friendly success story, an app that keeps conversations secure even from prying corporate eyes.

That’s why this latest lawsuit could sting. WhatsApp’s encryption is one of its key selling points, especially as privacy-conscious users weigh alternatives like Signal or Telegram. The plaintiffs’ claims, that Meta staff could potentially access the “substance” of messages, directly challenge the company’s most fundamental promise.

While Meta insists its encryption is rock-solid, the case adds a new wrinkle to ongoing debates about how private encrypted platforms truly are. Even if messages are encrypted in transit, some critics argue that metadata, who you talk to, when, and how often, remains visible, and can be used to build profiles of user behaviour.

For now, the specifics of the plaintiffs’ evidence remain unclear. The case is still in its early stages, and no court has yet ruled on the merits of their claims. But with heavyweight law firms involved and the potential for class-action status, this lawsuit could grow into yet another major headache for Meta.

It’s an ironic twist for a company that has spent years trying to prove it can be trusted with users’ data. As the court battle unfolds, billions of WhatsApp users may be left wondering: just how private are those “private” messages after all?