Meta wins dismissal of WhatsApp privacy suit as judge questions whistleblower detail

A federal judge has dismissed a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging that Meta can read WhatsApp messages despite its end-to-end encryption promises, ruling that the complaint lacked sufficient detail about the basis for its whistleblower claims. The suit, filed in January by plaintiffs from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Africa, accused Meta and WhatsApp of misleading more than three billion users about the security of their private conversations. US District Judge Rita Lin left the door open for plaintiffs to revise and refile the case.

The complaint relied on unnamed whistleblowers who told federal investigators that Meta employees and third-party contractors could access WhatsApp messages through an internal system, contradicting the company’s marketing of end-to-end encryption as unbreakable. Plaintiffs alleged that a worker could request access by submitting a task to engineers who would grant it without scrutiny, and that past messages dating back to account creation could be retrieved without decryption. Meta called the allegations “categorically false” and said WhatsApp has used the Signal protocol for encryption for nearly a decade.

The judge found insufficient information about the whistleblowers’ knowledge but critically did not rule the allegations impossible, noting that the evidence does not conclusively preclude the possibility that the claims are true. She rejected Meta’s request for sanctions against the plaintiffs and their lawyers, signaling that the court does not view the case as frivolous. Plaintiffs’ attorney Adam Wolfson of Quinn Emanuel said his team looks forward to adding more detail on the whistleblower testimony, which he described as extensive.

The dismissal lands three months after the US Commerce Department abruptly closed its own investigation into the same whistleblower allegations, a shutdown that came shortly after the lead investigator contacted other federal agencies to share preliminary findings. The reasons for that closure remain unclear, with sources declining to say whether the probe found evidence of wrongdoing or was terminated for procedural or political reasons. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a separate lawsuit against Meta and WhatsApp in May making substantially similar claims, meaning Meta faces continued legal pressure on multiple fronts despite Thursday’s federal court win.

Meta has been investing heavily in WhatsApp’s privacy credentials, launching an Incognito Chat mode for its AI assistant in May that processes conversations inside a secure enclave the company says even its own engineers cannot access. But the company’s track record on data privacy includes a record EU privacy fine and a pattern of outsourcing sensitive data handling to contractors whose workers have described viewing intimate user footage without adequate safeguards. The plaintiffs have until August to file an amended complaint, and Wolfson’s firm has signaled it intends to do so.