Facebook may soon bring an encryption option to its Messenger app, which boasts over 900 million users, according to a report from The Guardian. This means users will get the choice to make their message thread encrypted so that nobody but the message recipient can access the contents of the thread -- neither Facebook nor authorities can access a user’s message thread.
According to The Guardian , which cites three anonymous sources close to the project, this change is slated to roll out in “the coming months.” That said, Facebook not made an official announcement regarding encryption for its Messenger app.
By rolling out end-to-end encryption, Facebook would join the likes of Apple and Google. Apple was one of the earlier adopters of end-to-end encryption for its iMessage service and Google’s new messaging app Allo, announced at the recent I/O conference, came with end-to-end encryption.
Last month, messaging app Whatsapp, owned by Facebook, enabled end-to-end encryption for its users, which number over a billion. “Building secure products actually makes for a safer world, (though) many people in law enforcement may not agree with that,” said Whatsapp cofounder Brian Acton to Wired at the time.
Facebook has implemented several changes to its Messenger app this year. At its F8 developer conference, Facebook announced the implementation of chatbot support to Messenger. The “Bots for Messenger” feature is part of the latest Messenger update — a previous update introduced a “Bots and Businesses” section. Facebook released a new feature, called Messenger Code, which shows the user’s profile photograph with circles and dots surrounding it and is providing users access to Messenger on their desktop without having to go to Facebook.
