Facebook Messenger Brings End-to-End Encryption to More Users

Meta is bringing end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger to more users. This is one important security feature that Facebook Messenger lacks compared to the Meta-owned WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, or Apple’s iMessage.

Many people probably see Facebook as the exact opposite of privacy, but the company claims it started working on end-to-end encryption for Messenger back in 2019. Implementing end-to-end encryption required Meta to move to a new server architecture and rewrite the Facebook Messenger codebase.

“Starting today, millions more people’s chats on Messenger will be upgraded to stronger encryption standards as part of our ongoing end-to-end encryption (E2EE) testing. We remain on track to launch default E2EE for one-to-one friends and family chats on Messenger by the end of the year,” Meta said today.

As Meta is expanding testing of end-to-end encryption on Messenger, the company emphasized that users will need to update their app to have the feature enabled by default. Eventually, all conversations will be encrypted by default, but this will take time.

In its latest quarterly report for Q2 2023, Meta announced that Facebook now has more than 3 billion monthly active users. While not of all them may be using the standalone Facebook Messenger app on mobile, Meta announced earlier this year that it was testing adding Messenger back to the main Facebook mobile app.