In a high-stakes , plaintiffs assert that WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption is a meaningless gimmick and that both Meta and WhatsApp retain the ability to access users' private messages.

Meta has long touted WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption feature that supposedly ensures user privacy by preventing anyone from snooping in on chats. In fact, in 2021, the company extended its end-to-end encryption to cloud backups as well .

However, an international group of plaintiffs, hailing from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Africa, have now cited "whistleblowers" to allege in a lawsuit that Meta and WhatsApp "store, analyze, and can access virtually all of WhatsApp users' purportedly 'private' communications."

Basically, the litigants argue that Meta and WhatsApp can access the "substance" of user messages, but have refused to elaborate on the exact modus operandi or the role that supposed whistleblowers played in this alleged discovery.

The case has now been filed in a US District Court in San Francisco, with the plaintiffs petitioning for a class-action status. For its part, Meta has termed these claims as "categorically false and absurd" and that the lawsuit is a "frivolous work of fiction." The company's spokesperson has also reiterated that "WhatsApp has been end-to-end encrypted using the Signal protocol for a decade."

Follow to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.