Facebook Messenger to get end-to-end encryption in 2023

Meta earlier this week announced three new much-awaited privacy features-- exit group chats without notifying everyone, control who can see when you're online, and prevent screenshots on view once messages.

Now, in a welcome move, will soon be bringing End-to-End Encryption (EE2E) to the Facebook Messenger app.

For the uninitiated, E2EE is a protocol that ensures a secure communication channel between two private individuals to share texts, images, videos, files, and any type of multimedia content via digital devices. Most, importantly, it prevents third parties from accessing data while it's transferred from one end system or device to another. In E2EE, the data is encrypted on the sender's system or device, and only the intended recipient can decrypt it.

Currently, Facebook offers the option to opt-in E2EE only on a per-chat basis, only when a person initiates a communication session. Only a few people with privacy security conscious used to turn it on, but others never cared about it.

Soon, like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger will have E2EE on for both calls and chatting by default but in 2023. The testing process is slated to start this week and the company has plans to offer password-protected secured E2EE storage backup of old chats too.

Facebook Messenger to get E2EE security for chat backups. Credit: Facebook

"With that in mind, we’re testing secure storage to back up those messages in case you lose your phone or want to restore your message history on a new, supported device. As with end-to-end encrypted chats, secure storage means that we won’t have access to your messages, unless you choose to report them to us," the company said.

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