An international group of plaintiffs has filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms, Inc. alleging that the company made false claims about the privacy and security protections for its WhatsApp messaging service, directly challenging the platform's foundational promise of end-to-end encrypted communications.
The lawsuit, filed January 23 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, accuses Meta and WhatsApp of being able to "store, analyze, and can access virtually all of WhatsApp users' purportedly 'private' communications," according to the complaint cited by Bloomberg. The plaintiffs, who hail from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Africa, are seeking class-action certification, which could potentially represent WhatsApp's billions of users worldwide.
Encryption Claims Under Fire
The legal action strikes at the core of WhatsApp's marketing strategy. Meta has long promoted end-to-end encryption as a central feature of the messaging app, with in-app notifications informing users that "only people in this chat can read, listen to, or share" their messages. The plaintiffs argue these assurances do not reflect how the service actually operates.
The complaint references "whistleblowers" who allegedly helped bring this information to light, though it does not identify them or explain their roles. The allegations follow a September 2025 whistleblower lawsuit filed by Attaullah Baig, WhatsApp's former head of security, who claimed approximately 1,500 WhatsApp engineers had unrestricted access to user data without proper oversight and that the company failed to address more than 100,000 daily account takeovers.
Meta Dismisses Claims as "Fiction"
Meta has forcefully rejected the allegations, with spokesperson Andy Stone calling the lawsuit "a frivolous work of fiction".
"Any claim that people's WhatsApp messages are not encrypted is categorically false and absurd," Stone said in a statement. "WhatsApp has been end-to-end encrypted using the Signal protocol for a decade".
The company, which acquired WhatsApp in 2014, said it will pursue sanctions against the plaintiffs' legal team. Jay Barnett of Barnett Legal, one of the plaintiff's attorneys, declined to comment on the case.