Meta fights U.S. court lawsuit over false claims of WhatsApp message privacy

A group of international plaintiffs on Friday filed a new lawsuit against Meta, claiming it lied about WhatsApp privacy and fooled users into thinking their chats were truly private.

According to the lawsuit, Meta has been secretly storing, analyzing, and accessing messages it publicly claims are “end-to-end encrypted.”

WhatsApp shows users a default privacy warning: “only people in this chat can read, listen to, or share” messages. That’s supposed to mean that not even Meta can see what users send. But the new lawsuit says that entire promise is fake, and it accuses Meta of defrauding billions of users worldwide by making them believe otherwise.

Plaintiffs say Meta misled billions about encryption

The group filing the case includes plaintiffs from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Africa. They argue that Meta’s claims about end-to-end encryption are a complete scam, and that workers inside the company can view the content of so-called “private” WhatsApp messages. The plaintiffs say whistleblowers helped bring this to light, though they didn’t name them or explain how they got the info.

Meta bought WhatsApp in 2014 and has repeatedly claimed its platform is fully secure. But the plaintiffs say that’s all just PR spin, not real privacy.

They accuse Meta and WhatsApp of building an illusion of safety to lure in users, while in the background, the company collects and studies the messages it claims are out of reach.

Meta is not backing down. The company’s spokesperson, Andy Stone, called the entire lawsuit a joke. “Any claim that people’s WhatsApp messages are not encrypted is categorically false and absurd,” Stone said in a statement. “WhatsApp has been end-to-end encrypted using the Signal protocol for a decade. This lawsuit is a frivolous work of fiction.”

Meta says it will pursue sanctions against the plaintiffs’ lawyers.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs want this case to become a class-action lawsuit. The legal team includes attorneys from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, Keller Postman, and Barnett Legal. Multiple lawyers declined to comment or didn’t respond to requests.

Patent fight adds pressure over smart glasses tech

As Meta deals with that lawsuit, it’s also being targeted in a separate patent fight. In Massachusetts federal court, Solos Technology Ltd. filed a complaint Friday, saying Meta and partners stole smart glasses technology and violated “core patents” that power products like the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer Gen 1.

Solos is asking for “multiple billions of dollars” in damages. The company also wants an injunction that could stop Ray-Ban Meta products from being sold.

The filing claims Meta and EssilorLuxottica had years of access to Solos’ intellectual property, going back to at least 2015. Solos says even Oakley employees tested early versions of its hardware years before Meta got involved.

Solos built its first smart eyewear for cyclists over a decade ago. Its more recent “AirGo” models include AI-powered features like translation and ChatGPT integration. On its site, Solos says it holds over 100 patents and applications.

The lawsuit alleges that every Meta release since Gen 1 copies Solos’ tech, including the latest smart glasses built with muscle-signal technology.

Solos also says that a former MIT Sloan Fellow, Priyanka Shekar, published a 2021 study citing Solos’ patented tech. That same year, she joined Meta as a product manager. According to the lawsuit, Shekar’s work gave Meta internal access to Solos’ designs, making the alleged infringement even more deliberate.

The filing claims that by the time Meta and EssilorLuxottica launched smart glasses in 2021, they already had deep, direct knowledge of Solos’ entire roadmap. That lawsuit is now one more legal mess Meta has to clean up, while it’s still trying to convince users that WhatsApp chats aren’t being read behind their backs.

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