Meta Begins Rolling Out Default End-To-End Encryption Across Messenger And Facebook

Meta is rolling out end-to-end encryption for personal chats and calls on its platforms Messenger and Facebook.

When end-to-end encryption is on, only the sender and the receiver of the message can see its contents.

Encrypted messaging on Messenger has been available as an opt-in feature since 2016, the move was initially announced by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2019.

Although the company initially planned to make this feature the default setting in 2022, the launch was postponed due to concerns that it might hinder Meta's ability to detect child abuse on its platform.

With the updates, the company claims that it will no longer be able to access the content of user messages unless a participant in the conversation decides to report a message to the company.

The implementation of end-to-end encryption for over 1 billion users on the platform is expected to take a few months. Once the transition is finalised, users will be prompted to establish a recovery method for restoring their messages.