Former contractors have alleged they and Meta staff had “unfettered” access to encrypted messages
US federal authorities are investigating allegations that staff at WhatsApp owner Meta Platforms Inc. had access to message content despite the company marketing the app as protected by end-to-end encryption, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
Special agents from the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security have been examining claims from former Meta contractors who alleged that they and staff at Meta had “unfettered access” to WhatsApp messages.
One contractor told an investigator that a Facebook team employee confirmed they could “go back a ways into WhatsApp (encrypted) messages,” including in criminal cases, according to an agent’s report reviewed by Bloomberg.
WhatsApp, which was acquired by Meta in 2014, insists on its website that “no one outside of the chat, not even WhatsApp, can read, listen to, or share” what a user says.”
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone had also denied the allegations, stating that “what these individuals claim is not possible because WhatsApp, its employees, and its contractors, cannot access people’s encrypted communications.”
Bloomberg noted that the inquiry, internally dubbed “Operation Sourced Encryption,” was described as ongoing in a July 2025 document and was reportedly active as recently as January. However, its current status is unclear, the outlet said, noting that many such investigations end “without any formal accusations of wrongdoing.”
The probe follows a recent class-action lawsuit against Meta alleging the company can access and analyze virtually all WhatsApp communications. The claims have amplified longstanding skepticism from competitors and officials.
Controlled by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, Meta also owns Facebook and Instagram, and in 2019 paid the US federal government $5 billion over a data privacy scandal involving the unauthorized harvesting of millions of Facebook users’ personal information by a British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica for political advertising.
Pavel Durov, founder of the rival Telegram app, recently mocked anyone trusting WhatsApp’s encryption claims, stating that “you’d have to be braindead to believe WhatsApp is secure in 2026.”
Last year, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also stated that all messaging apps are “absolutely transparent systems” to intelligence and security services and urged people to refrain from sharing sensitive information on such platforms.
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