US Investigates Lawsuit Alleging Meta Can Access WhatsApp Messages

US authorities have reportedly looked into claims that Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, can read users’ encrypted messages. These claims were raised in a lawsuit filed by the law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, which alleges that Meta can access virtually all private communications on the platform. Meta has strongly denied the allegations, calling them ‘categorically false and absurd’ and suggesting the lawsuit may serve to support the NSO Group, an Israeli spyware company recently involved in legal disputes with WhatsApp. The whistleblowers cited in the lawsuit are from several countries, including Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Africa. Experts and officials have expressed skepticism, noting that WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption makes it mathematically improbable for Meta to access message content directly. While WhatsApp collects metadata such as user contacts and communication patterns, actual message content remains encrypted. A US Department of Commerce spokesperson has called reports of an investigation ‘unsubstantiated.’ Meta continues to defend the security of WhatsApp’s encryption, and the company has signaled that it will pursue sanctions against the law firm for filing what it describes as a meritless lawsuit aimed at grabbing headlines.