Meta Platforms, Inc. is facing a significant legal challenge, as an international group of plaintiffs has filed a lawsuit alleging that the company has made false claims regarding the privacy and security of its WhatsApp chat service. The lawsuit, filed on Friday in US District Court in San Francisco, specifically targets Meta's long-standing assertion that WhatsApp conversations are protected by 'end-to-end' encryption, meaning messages are only accessible to the sender and recipient and not to Meta itself. WhatsApp's in-app messaging states that 'only people in this chat can read, listen to, or share' messages, a feature the company claims is turned on by default and has been powered by the Signal protocol for a decade.

The plaintiffs, hailing from countries including Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Africa, contend that Meta's privacy claims are demonstrably false. They allege that Meta and WhatsApp 'store, analyze, and can access virtually all of WhatsApp users’ purportedly ‘private’ communications,' accusing the companies and their leadership of defrauding billions of WhatsApp users worldwide. The complaint further states that Meta stores the substance of users' communications and that company workers can gain access to them, citing unnamed 'whistleblowers' as a source of this information. Lawyers representing the plaintiffs are seeking to certify this as a class-action lawsuit.

In response to these grave allegations, a spokesperson for Meta, Andy Stone, vehemently defended the company, dismissing the lawsuit as 'frivolous' and a 'work of fiction.' Stone stated that Meta 'will pursue sanctions against plaintiffs’ counsel,' adding, 'Any claim that people’s WhatsApp messages are not encrypted is categorically false and absurd.' Meta, which acquired WhatsApp in 2014, maintains its commitment to the security protocols in place.

This lawsuit comes amidst a series of controversies and legal challenges surrounding Meta's data privacy practices. In September of the previous year, Attaullah Baig, Meta's former head of security, sued the company, alleging 'systemic cybersecurity failures' within WhatsApp that could compromise user privacy. Baig claimed to have discovered that approximately 1,500 WhatsApp engineers had unrestricted access to user data, including sensitive personal information, and could move or steal such data without detection or an audit trail. Furthermore, Meta faced backlash last year over plans to show hyperpersonalized ads to users based on their conversations with the Meta AI chatbot across its various apps, including WhatsApp. The company has also begun displaying ads within WhatsApp's status updates. In India, Meta was fined ₹213.14 crore in connection with its 2021 policy, which compelled users to share data with other Meta applications like Facebook and Instagram for advertising purposes. These preceding events underscore a broader pattern of scrutiny regarding Meta's handling of user data and privacy.