Meta announced plans to discontinue support for end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in Instagram chats after May 8, 2026.
“If you have chats that are affected by this change, you will receive instructions on how to download the media and messages you want to keep,” the social media giant said in its help document. “If you’re using an older version of Instagram, you may need to update the app before downloading affected chats.”
The social media giant first began testing E2EE for Instagram direct messages in 2021 as part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s “privacy-focused social networking vision.” This feature is currently “only available in some regions” and is not enabled by default.
Weeks after the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in February 2022, the company made encrypted direct messaging available to all adult users in both countries.
The development comes days after TikTok said it had no plans to introduce E2EE to protect direct messages on its platform, telling BBC News that the technology makes users less safe and that it wants to protect users, especially young people, from harm.
Reuters also reported late last month that Meta moved forward with plans to adopt an encrypted messaging service on Facebook and Instagram in 2019, despite internal warnings that it would hamper the company’s ability to detect and report illegal activities such as child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and terrorist propaganda to law enforcement.
E2EE has been hailed as helping to ensure privacy because it locks out service providers, malicious parties, and other third parties from accessing or intercepting data by ensuring that messages can only be decrypted and read by the user during the communication.
But law enforcement and child safety advocates say the technology creates a safe haven for criminals by making it impossible for companies to comply with warrants for extradition of message content, a problem known as the “going dark” phenomenon.
This year, the European Commission will present a technology roadmap for encryption to identify and evaluate solutions that enable law enforcement to legally access encrypted data while protecting cybersecurity and fundamental rights.
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