WhatsApp’s Latest Feature Will Tell You Whether Your Chats Are Securely Encrypted
End-to-end encryption (or E2EE) is the cornerstone of modern chat applications and protocols. iMessage, RCS and WhatsApp position themselves as secure methods for messaging friends, family and colleagues without worrying about others intercepting and reading your messages, and E2EE is what allows them to do this.
However, in Meta applications this will not be the case for long. The European Commission recently ruled that Meta messaging apps, including Messenger, must provide ” chat interoperability ,” or the ability for users to connect third-party platforms to WhatsApp. The idea is that Meta has too much of a monopoly on EU messaging and doesn’t allow fair competition with other third-party options.
In theory, allowing other platforms to route through WhatsApp would be better for all users, but there’s a catch. Meta requires these third parties to either use the same signaling protocol for E2EE as its own applications, or demonstrate that they are using a compatible protocol that offers the same security benefits. However, as Meta points out, they have no control over what these third parties actually do with your messages after they leave WhatsApp or Messenger, which opens up possible security vulnerabilities when you message someone using a third-party platform.
To Meta’s credit, it vets platforms that request to work with their apps before allowing them to be used. And while Meta is more concerned about the lack of control over these platforms than the E2EE issue, there is a real security concern: Users may assume that messaging someone using WhatsApp will still allow them to take advantage of the encryption benefits the app provides. is known for the fact that they may actually be chatting unknowingly through an insecure messaging protocol.
WhatsApp will soon warn you if the chat is unsafe
To address these potential security gaps, WhatsApp is introducing a new feature for beta testers. As reported by WABetaInfo , whenever you chat with someone over Signal, you’ll see a new “end-to-end encrypted” message at the top of the chat next to the padlock icon. When you see this, you know you’re getting the same E2EE protection you get with a direct connection to WhatsApp.
You can try out the feature for yourself in the Android 2.24.6.11 beta, but WABetaInfo reports that you might also see it in versions 2.24.6.7, 2.24.6.8, and 2.24.6.10. You can sign up for WhatsApp beta for Android here .
It’s unclear whether Meta will add this feature to Messenger as well. The company only recently made E2EE the standard for chats on the app , so it doesn’t quite have the same security as WhatsApp. However, now that E2EE is being rolled out to Messenger by default, it would make sense for Meta to flag whenever you actually communicate securely with someone on that platform.