TL;DRJudge dismissed WhatsApp encryption lawsuit for lacking detail but left the door open to refile, noting whistleblower claims may still be true
A federal judge has dismissed a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging that Meta can read WhatsApp messages despite its end-to-end encryption promises, ruling that the complaint lacked sufficient detail about the basis for its whistleblower claims. The suit, filed in January by plaintiffs from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Africa, accused Meta and WhatsApp of misleading more than three billion users about the security of their private conversations. US District Judge Rita Lin left the door open for plaintiffs to revise and refile the case.
The complaint relied on unnamed whistleblowers who told federal investigators that Meta employees and third-party contractors could access WhatsApp messages through an internal system, contradicting the company’s marketing of end-to-end encryption as unbreakable. Plaintiffs alleged that a worker could request access by submitting a task to engineers who would grant it without scrutiny, and that past messages dating back to account creation could be retrieved without decryption. Meta called the allegations “categorically false” and said WhatsApp has used the Signal protocol for encryption for nearly a decade.
