Does Meta Read Your WhatsApp Chats? New Lawsuit Sparks Fresh Debate On User Privacy

A new lawsuit has reignited questions about what WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption does, and does not, protect. A group of plaintiffs have sued Meta, accusing it of misleading users with its “end-to-end encryption” claim, which means data, including photos and videos, exchanged in conversations cannot be read by the company or a third party. In the lawsuit, the group has alleged that Meta and WhatsApp “store, analyse, and can access virtually all of WhatsApp users' purportedly ‘private’ conversations.”

The claim made in the lawsuit has drawn sharp reactions from Elon Musk, Telegram founder Pavel Durov, and a clarification from WhatsApp chief Will Cathcart.

What the lawsuit claims

According to Bloomberg, the lawsuit alleges that Meta employees can access the substance of WhatsApp communications through an internal process, effectively bypassing the privacy promise users see in the app. One claim described in coverage is that employees could submit a request (“task”) to a Meta engineer to pull up messages in real time using a user identifier.

Meta has rejected the allegations and described the case as baseless. A Meta spokesperson said WhatsApp has been end-to-end encrypted using the Signal protocol for a decade and called the lawsuit “a frivolous work of fiction.”

Elon Musk: “WhatsApp is not secure”

As the lawsuit circulated online, Musk posted on X: “WhatsApp is not secure. Even Signal is questionable. Use X Chat.” His post helped push the dispute into a wider, public debate about whether encryption claims match real-world product behaviour and company practices.

Pavel Durov joins in

Durov also weighed in after the lawsuit surfaced, criticising WhatsApp’s security and arguing that believing it is secure in 2026 would be “braindead,” according to reports. His comments echoed a long-running rivalry between Telegram and WhatsApp over which platform offers stronger privacy protections.

Will Cathcart’s response

Cathcart, who leads WhatsApp, publicly pushed back on the allegations and called the claims “totally false.” He said WhatsApp “can’t read messages because the encryption keys are stored on your phone,” and argued the case was a “no-merit, headline-seeking lawsuit.”

What users should take away

Even if message content is end-to-end encrypted, privacy debates often hinge on edge cases, like cloud backups, forwarded messages, reports, and metadata (who you messaged, when, and from where). If you are trying to reduce exposure, check whether chat backups are enabled, review what gets stored in the cloud, and limit what you share in any platform’s “report” flow. WhatsApp allows your backup to be end-to-end encrypted, which you can enable in the app settings.

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