According to people familiar with the situation, Meta Platforms will begin automatically encrypting all messages on Facebook and Instagram on Wednesday, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the social media behemoth will start automatically converting Facebook users’ messages to end-to-end encryption this week and rolling out the change over several weeks.
According to the report, Instagram direct messages will also automatically switch to this type of encryption at a later time, probably in the New Year.
When Reuters asked Meta for comment on the story, Meta did not get back to them right away.
Users of Facebook and Instagram would no longer need to activate the encryption feature, which limits message reading to the sender and recipients.
According to Meta, whose WhatsApp platform already encrypts messages, encryption can protect users from fraudsters, hackers, and other criminals.
Governments and corporations have disagreed on end-to-end encryption. In order to safeguard children from sexual abuse, the British government had urged Meta back in September not to implement encryption on Facebook Messenger and Instagram without first implementing safety precautions.
