Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has three apps that let you chat one-to-one: WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger. The former has supported end-to-end encryption for years, making your chats more secure. The good news is that Instagram and Facebook Messenger also get this option by default. The bad news is that this will take a few more years, the chief of security at Meta says.
When will Instagram and Messenger get end-to-end encryption?
In The Telegraph, Meta's Antigone Davis says the company plans to make end-to-end encryption the standard across all of its chat apps. This allows only the sender and recipient to decipher the message. There is often resistance from government agencies to this form of security, because conversations from criminals are much more difficult to intercept.
Meta is therefore looking for a way 'to strike the balance', whereby users are protected but the system cannot be abused. She previously said that end-to-end encryption will become standard in Facebook Messenger and Instagram chats at the earliest in 2022. Now she says the global rollout of standard end-to-end encryption across all Meta chat services won't be until sometime in 2023.
Messenger and Instagram chat do offer an option to make chats encrypted, but this is not enabled by default. This will therefore be the case with the proposed change in 2023. For some time now, the chats of Messenger and Instagram can also be combined. Meta also plans to involve WhatsApp in this. However, there is a lot of criticism about this. Earlier this year we wrote that the optional link between WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger has not yet been completed.