World’s most popular messaging in the era of Digital India WhatsApp Has become a part of our life. From tea stall to corporate meeting. Now serious questions have been raised on this trusted app. A major lawsuit filed against Meta alleges that WhatsApp’s ‘end-to-end encryption’ is just a pretense and that users’ chats are not completely private. Now a big controversy has arisen regarding its confidentiality. Some users from Australia, South Africa and Mexico have filed a lawsuit against WhatsApp’s parent company Meta in the San Francisco Court of America. This case has forced not only the tech world but also the common Indian users to think. Are our personal things really safe or is a third eye watching everything?
WhatsApp has been claiming that its end-to-end encryption technology ensures that only the sender and the recipient can read the sent message. Even WhatsApp or Meta itself cannot see those messages, because the encryption key remains on the users’ device. But the lawsuit says that this claim is not completely true and that Meta employees can bypass this security system.
The 51-page lawsuit, filed on January 23, claims that “If a Meta employee says that he needs to see a user’s WhatsApp chat, he sends a ‘task’ to a Meta engineer. After this, the engineer gives access to that employee, through which he can see the chat of any user.”
The lawsuit also states that the chats appear in almost real time. Deleted messages can also be viewed. There is no time limit on access. A tool (widget) linked to the user’s unique ID is used. That is, the claim is that there is a ‘secret door’ behind the security wall of WhatsApp.
However, no concrete technical evidence has yet been presented in this lawsuit to prove that Meta can actually break encryption. Despite this, the matter is being considered serious because it is directly to the privacy of crores of users. According to Bloomberg’s report, this lawsuit has been filed by international users, due to which the matter is not limited to America only.
Meta has completely rejected these allegations and said that “these claims are false and ridiculous.” The company says that it cannot decrypt WhatsApp messages and does not have the technical ability to read users’ private chats, so end-to-end encryption is completely safe. Meta also said that it will strongly respond to these allegations in the court.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has also jumped into this controversy. Responding on social media, he wrote, “Whatsapp is not secure. Even Signal is suspicious. Use X Chat.”
Elon Musk’s company xAI launched a new messaging feature ‘X Chat’ on the X platform in November 2025, which is being said to be an alternative to WhatsApp and Telegram.
X Chat has been introduced as a privacy-focused messaging app. It has features like end-to-end encryption, advanced message control, unified inbox that connects old DMs and new chats, more customization options. Elon Musk is promoting it as a more secure platform.
Digital experts say that if these allegations prove true, it will be one of the world’s biggest data privacy scandals.
Now this case will go to the US court, where Meta will have to explain its system and the plaintiffs will have to present technical evidence of their allegations. The court will decide whether WhatsApp’s encryption policy misleads users or not. Until the decision is taken, only one question will remain in the minds of millions of WhatsApp users – “Is my chat really only mine?”
