{"id":251997,"date":"2026-05-21T23:52:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T03:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/21\/texas-sues-meta-whatsapp-over-encryption-privacy-claims-technology-news\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T00:20:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T04:20:07","slug":"texas-sues-meta-whatsapp-over-encryption-privacy-claims-technology-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/21\/texas-sues-meta-whatsapp-over-encryption-privacy-claims-technology-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas sues Meta, WhatsApp over encryption privacy claims | Technology News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas sues Meta, WhatsApp over encryption privacy claims | Technology News<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/technology\/tech-news-technology\/texas-sues-meta-whatsapp-over-encryption-privacy-claims-10702358\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-21 23:52:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: indianexpress.com<\/a><\/p>\n

2 min read<\/span>May 22, 2026 09:22 AM IST<\/span><\/p>\n

The Texas Attorney General\u2019s Office on Thursday sued WhatsApp and its parent company Meta Platforms Inc alleging they misled consumers about the strength and scope of WhatsApp\u2019s encryption measures, which a Meta spokesman denied.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit in Harrison County court says WhatsApp and Meta falsely assure users that WhatsApp \u2060messages \u200bare encrypted despite having access to \u201cvirtually all\u201d private communications on the messaging app.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatsApp markets its services as secure and encrypted, but it does not deliver on those \u200bpromises,\u201d Texas \u200bAttorney General Ken Paxton said in \u2060a statement.<\/p>\n

Meta spokesman Andy Stone said on social media that the lawsuit\u2019s allegations are \u200cfalse and that WhatsApp cannot access people\u2019s encrypted communications.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit seeks a court order barring Meta and WhatsApp from accessing Texans\u2019 WhatsApp messages without their consent, as well as monetary penalties.<\/p>\n

Texas\u2019 lawsuit cites news reports about a federal investigation into claims \u2060that Meta \u2060had access to unencrypted WhatsApp messages and a whistleblower report to the U.S. Securities and \u2060Exchange \u200cCommission.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit was filed under the \u200bTexas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, the \u200cstate\u2019s main consumer protection law. Paxton\u2019s office has filed a number of similar data privacy lawsuits \u200cagainst major companies \u200bincluding \u200bGoogle, which agreed \u200bin May 2025 to pay $1.375 billion to settle claims that it violated users\u2019 \u200bdata privacy. On May 11, Paxton\u2019s office \u2060filed a lawsuit accusing Netflix of spying on children and other consumers by collecting their data without consent \u200cand designing \u2060its platform to be addictive.<\/p>\n

Story continues below this ad<\/p>\n

Netflix denied the allegations and said the lawsuit is \u200bbased on inaccurate and distorted information.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas sues Meta, WhatsApp over encryption privacy claims | Technology News https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/technology\/tech-news-technology\/texas-sues-meta-whatsapp-over-encryption-privacy-claims-10702358\/ Publish Date: 2026-05-21…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":251998,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.indianexpress.com\/2026\/03\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-03-26-at-4.38.42-PM.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-251997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251997"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251997"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":251999,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251997\/revisions\/251999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}