{"id":252492,"date":"2026-05-22T00:41:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T04:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/22\/texas-sues-meta-whatsapp-over-encryption-privacy-claims\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T10:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T14:40:16","slug":"texas-sues-meta-whatsapp-over-encryption-privacy-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/22\/texas-sues-meta-whatsapp-over-encryption-privacy-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas sues Meta, WhatsApp over encryption privacy claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/technology\/texas-sues-meta-whatsapp-over-encryption-privacy-claims\/article71009022.ece<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-22 00:41:00<\/a><\/p>\n

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

\n The lawsuit was filed under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, the state\u2019s main consumer protection law [File]
\n | Photo Credit: REUTERS\n <\/p>\n

The Texas Attorney General\u2019s Office on Thursday sued WhatsApp and \u200bits parent company Meta Platforms Inc. alleging they \u200cmisled consumers about the strength and scope of \u200bWhatsApp\u2019s encryption measures, which a Meta \u2060spokesman denied.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit in Harrison County court says WhatsApp and Meta falsely assure users that WhatsApp \u200cmessages are encrypted despite having access to \u201cvirtually all\u201d private communications on the messaging app.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatsApp \u200cmarkets its services as secure and \u200cencrypted, \u2060but it does not deliver on \u2060those promises,\u201d Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Meta spokesman Andy Stone said on social media \u200bthat the lawsuit\u2019s allegations \u200care false 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 \u200cWhatsApp messages without their consent, as well \u200bas monetary penalties.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Texas\u2019 lawsuit cites news reports about a federal investigation into claims \u2060that Meta had access to unencrypted WhatsApp messages and a whistleblower report to the U.S. Securities \u200cand Exchange Commission.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit was filed under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, the state\u2019s main consumer protection law. Paxton\u2019s office has filed a number of similar data privacy lawsuits against major companies including Google, which agreed \u200cin May 2025 to pay $1.375 billion to settle \u200bclaims that it violated users\u2019 data privacy. On May 11, Paxton\u2019s office filed \u2060a lawsuit accusing Netflix of spying on children and \u2060other consumers by collecting their data without consent and designing its platform to \u200cbe addictive.<\/p>\n

Netflix denied the allegations and said the lawsuit is…<\/p>\n

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

Texas sues Meta, WhatsApp over encryption privacy claims https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/technology\/texas-sues-meta-whatsapp-over-encryption-privacy-claims\/article71009022.ece Publish Date: 2026-05-22 00:41:00 Source Domain:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":252493,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/th-i.thgim.com\/public\/incoming\/4iag0h\/article71009028.ece\/alternates\/LANDSCAPE_1200\/2026-03-11T150014Z_812914593_RC2MKHASJXN5_RTRMADP_3_META-PLATFORMS-TECH-WHATSAPP.JPG","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252492","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\/252492"}],"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=252492"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252494,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252492\/revisions\/252494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}