Meta exec denies having access to WhatsApp chats amid privacy lawsuit

Plaintiffs in a US district court lawsuit accused Meta of having backdoor access to WhatsApp chats, impacting the privacy of its more than 3 billion users.

An executive at Meta has denied accusations that it can access WhatsApp chats after plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against Meta on Friday, maintaining that the messaging app’s end-to-end encryption feature keeps messages secure as promised.

In an X post on Monday, Meta communications director Andy Stone said: “Any claim that people’s WhatsApp messages are not encrypted is categorically false and absurd,” while referring to the lawsuit as a “frivolous work of fiction.”

The lawsuit was filed in a US district court in San Francisco, California, on Friday by a group of WhatsApp users based in countries such as Australia, Mexico, South Africa and India.