Meta sued by users over alleged false claims on WhatsApp message privacy
The group of plaintiffs includes users from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa.
- Jan 25, 2026,
- Updated Jan 25, 2026 12:10 PM IST
An international group of plaintiffs has filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms, Inc., claiming the company has made false statements about the privacy and security of WhatsApp messages, according to Bloomberg.
Meta has long promoted WhatsApp’s “end-to-end” encryption as a key feature. This form of encryption means messages can only be read by the sender and the receiver, not by WhatsApp or Meta. The company says this encryption is turned on by default. WhatsApp also tells users in its app that “only people in this chat can read, listen to, or share” the messages.
However, in a lawsuit filed on Friday in a US District Court in San Francisco, the plaintiffs allege that these privacy claims are misleading. They claim that Meta and WhatsApp “store, analyze, and can access virtually all of WhatsApp users’ purportedly ‘private’ communications.” The lawsuit accuses the companies and their leaders of defrauding WhatsApp’s billions of users worldwide.
Meta has strongly denied the allegations. A spokesperson for the company, which acquired WhatsApp in 2014, called the lawsuit “frivolous” and said Meta will pursue sanctions against plaintiffs’ counsel.
“Any claim that people’s WhatsApp messages are not encrypted is categorically false and absurd,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in an email. “WhatsApp has been end-to-end encrypted using the Signal protocol for a decade. This lawsuit is a frivolous work of fiction.”
The group of plaintiffs includes users from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa. They allege that Meta stores the content of users’ messages and that company employees can access them.
The complaint also refers to “whistleblowers” who allegedly helped reveal this information, but does not provide details about who they are.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers have asked the court to certify the case as a class-action lawsuit.
Several attorneys named in the filing from the firms Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and Keller Postman did not respond to requests for comment. Another lawyer representing the plaintiffs, Jay Barnett of Barnett Legal, declined to comment.
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An international group of plaintiffs has filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms, Inc., claiming the company has made false statements about the privacy and security of WhatsApp messages, according to Bloomberg.
Meta has long promoted WhatsApp’s “end-to-end” encryption as a key feature. This form of encryption means messages can only be read by the sender and the receiver, not by WhatsApp or Meta. The company says this encryption is turned on by default. WhatsApp also tells users in its app that “only people in this chat can read, listen to, or share” the messages.
However, in a lawsuit filed on Friday in a US District Court in San Francisco, the plaintiffs allege that these privacy claims are misleading. They claim that Meta and WhatsApp “store, analyze, and can access virtually all of WhatsApp users’ purportedly ‘private’ communications.” The lawsuit accuses the companies and their leaders of defrauding WhatsApp’s billions of users worldwide.
Meta has strongly denied the allegations. A spokesperson for the company, which acquired WhatsApp in 2014, called the lawsuit “frivolous” and said Meta will pursue sanctions against plaintiffs’ counsel.
“Any claim that people’s WhatsApp messages are not encrypted is categorically false and absurd,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in an email. “WhatsApp has been end-to-end encrypted using the Signal protocol for a decade. This lawsuit is a frivolous work of fiction.”
The group of plaintiffs includes users from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa. They allege that Meta stores the content of users’ messages and that company employees can access them.
The complaint also refers to “whistleblowers” who allegedly helped reveal this information, but does not provide details about who they are.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers have asked the court to certify the case as a class-action lawsuit.
Several attorneys named in the filing from the firms Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and Keller Postman did not respond to requests for comment. Another lawyer representing the plaintiffs, Jay Barnett of Barnett Legal, declined to comment.
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