WhatsApp launches full encryption for all its users

WhatsApp, the messenger app owned by Facebook, has officially rolled out end-to-end encryption for its billion-plus users, meaning only the sender and receiver of a message or call will have access to its contents.

In a blog on the company’s website, WhatsApp’s founders, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, said it has “always prioritized making your data and communication as secure as possible”.

“And today, we're proud to announce that we've completed a technological development that makes WhatsApp a leader in protecting your private communication: full end-to-end encryption. From now on when you and your contacts use the latest version of the app, every call you make, and every message, photo, video, file, and voice message you send, is end-to-end encrypted by default, including group chat.”

The new encryption means that when a user sends a message, the only person who can read it is the person or group chat that message was sent to.

“No one can see inside that message. Not cybercriminals. Not hackers. Not oppressive regimes. Not even us. End-to-end encryption helps make communication via WhatsApp private – sort of like a face-to-face conversation,” Whatsapp said.

The company’s website explains that end-to-end encryption means messages are secured with a lock, which only the sender and recipient have the special key for. For added protection, every message sent has its own unique lock and key.

The announcement by WhatsApp comes in the wake of Apple’s encryption battle with the FBI, which dropped its case against the company after it managed to unlock the iPhone of the San Bernardino gunman Syed Farook without Apple’s assistance.

All of Apple’s devices are end-to-end encrypted so that any messages or calls cannot be accessed even by the company itself.

Jan Koum said in the blog: “The desire to protect people's private communication is one of the core beliefs we have at WhatsApp, and for me, it's personal. I grew up in the USSR during communist rule and the fact that people couldn't speak freely is one of the reasons my family moved to the United States.”