Attorney General Ken Paxton Files Lawsuit Against Meta and Whatsapp for Alleged Privacy Violations

According to a recently filed lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, WhatsApp and Meta misled consumers regarding the strength and scope of its privacy protections.

Being widely marketed as secure and using end-to-end encryption, message content can only be accessed by the sender and recipient, not WhatsApp's platform.

However, according to a press release from Attorney General Paxton, reports indicate that employees of WhatsApp have been able to access user communications, which contradicts Meta's privacy policies.

“Texans deserve to know whether their private communications are indeed truly private,” Paxton wrote in a statement. “WhatsApp markets its services as secure and encrypted, but it does not deliver on those promises. I am suing to protect Texans’ privacy and ensure that WhatsApp by Meta does not mislead Texans by unlawfully accessing private conversations and data.”

Paxton makes his claims under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA), which protects Texans from false, deceptive, or misleading business practices. According to Paxton, Meta does not comply with the DTPA by not protecting its consumers' messages.

This is not the first time Meta has faced allegations regarding employees being able to access private communications. Meta has consistently denied the claims since it acquired WhatsApp in 2014.

“WhatsApp cannot access people’s encrypted communications and any suggestion to the contrary is false,” Meta spokesperson Rachel Holland wrote in a statement responding to Paxton’s lawsuit Thursday. “We will fight this suit as we continue defending our strong record on protecting people’s messages.”

Recently, there have been a string of similar lawsuits, including one against Netflix, as the state fights to protect Texans' data privacy.