How to Use End-to-End Encryption on Facebook Messenger Right Now
The meta may not be a bastion of digital privacy (and may very well be its enemy), but times may change. On Thursday, August 11, the company announced that it is testing end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for Facebook Messenger by default , which means all Messenger users will protect their chats from spy eyes unless they choose not to. While these changes aren’t expected to roll out to all users anytime soon, there are ways to enable E2EE in Messenger right now.
How end-to-end encryption works
In typical messaging, texts are publicly stored on your device, the device you send them to, and on the server of the messaging platform (i.e. Facebook Messenger itself). These messages can be read by anyone with access to the devices on which these messages are stored, including messaging platform hosts. This makes it easy for a company like Meta to turn your messages over to the authorities if so requested.
However, with end-to-end encryption, messages are not sent or stored in plain text, but rather “encrypted”. If you tried to read an encrypted message, it would look like an unrecognizable mixture of characters, making it useless to intercept.
To decrypt a message, you need a “key”. For messaging, this key is either your device or the recipient’s device. These two devices are the only devices capable of deciphering your particular conversation – even though the Meta makes it easy to convey these messages, it doesn’t have the ability to decipher the messages for itself or for anyone who comes asking for them.
Meta is testing E2EE as the default messaging protocol for all Messenger conversations, which offers these benefits to all users out of the box. However, the tests are in their early stages at the moment, and Meta is reported to only include a couple of hundred users at first. Statistically, you’re not in this test group, so you’ll need to use Messenger’s hidden E2EE feature to take advantage of the security benefits.
How to enable end-to-end encryption in Facebook Messenger
This hidden feature is called “Secret Conversation” and is fairly easy to use (albeit a bit hidden). To get started, open the chat you want to use E2EE for, then tap the person’s name at the top of the screen. Under More Actions, click Go to Secret Conversation and Messenger will instantly open a new E2EE chat with a unique black and white theme to indicate it’s not a normal Messenger chat.
The catch is that the other user must be using a Secret Conversation and E2EE compatible Messenger app and device. If it’s not, you’ll get an error when you try to send something in a secret conversation. You can’t use secret conversations with groups either – keep that in mind before you start sharing sensitive information in multiparty chats. You won’t be able to send GIFs, make audio or video calls, or send payments in secret conversations, which somewhat limits this feature.
However, for E2EE purposes, Secret Conversations do the job: just be aware that you will see two chats in your app for every contact you start a Secret Conversation with. Make sure you click on the thread with the padlock icon and not on the regular conversation if you want your messages to be secure. However, Messenger makes it pretty clear when Secret Conversation is enabled, so if you don’t see any links to it in your chat, assume E2EE isn’t active.
Other ways to use E2EE on Facebook
Secret Conversation isn’t the only E2EE option for Messenger: there’s also something called Disappear Mode. Meta, then Facebook, introduced it in November 2020 , touting it as a Snapchat-like messaging tool: texts disappear after the chat is closed, and the app chats about anyone who takes a screenshot of a thread. However, the company did not emphasize that the chats in Disappearing Mode are fully encrypted.
To use fade mode, all you have to do is swipe up from the bottom of one of your Messenger chats. When you do, you’ll see “Swipe Up to Enable Disappear Mode” as well as a progress ring showing how much more you need to swipe up to enable the feature. Once the ring is full, release: the chat will switch to disappear mode, encrypting all messages and deleting them on exit. You can also enable or disable Disappear Mode in the Chat Settings: Scroll down the page, tap Disappear Mode, then toggle the slider.
Meta actually removes the disappear mode from Messenger once E2EE is deployed by default, but you can still enable a similar feature for disappearing messages. The company keeps a version of Instagram’s disappear mode, but it’s not E2EE, so it’s not as secure.