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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued Meta and its messaging platform WhatsApp, alleging the companies misled consumers about the strength and scope of WhatsApp’s encryption protections.
The lawsuit, filed in Harrison County court, accuses Meta and WhatsApp of falsely marketing the app as secure and encrypted while allegedly retaining access to extensive user communications data.
According to the complaint, WhatsApp “markets its services as secure and encrypted, but it does not deliver on those promises,” Paxton said in a statement.
Meta denied the allegations. Company spokesperson Andy Stone said WhatsApp cannot access users’ encrypted communications and described the lawsuit’s claims as false.
The case centers on one of the most sensitive issues in the modern technology industry: whether end-to-end encrypted platforms truly operate in a manner users understand and expect.
WhatsApp has long promoted end-to-end encryption as a core privacy feature, meaning messages can only be read by senders and recipients, not by the platform itself. The Texas lawsuit, however, argues that the scope of data accessible to Meta undermines those assurances and misleads consumers about how private their communications actually are.
The suit seeks financial penalties and a court order preventing Meta and WhatsApp from accessing Texans’ WhatsApp messages without explicit consent.
Texas also cited media reports about a federal investigation into Meta’s handling of WhatsApp data, along with a whistleblower complaint submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The lawsuit was filed under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and represents the latest escalation in Paxton’s increasingly aggressive campaign against major technology companies over privacy and consumer protection issues.
Texas has emerged as one of the most active U.S. states pursuing Big Tech through state-level litigation. Paxton’s office previously secured a $1.375 billion settlement from Google over alleged data privacy violations, and earlier this month sued Netflix over claims involving consumer and children’s data collection practices.
The WhatsApp lawsuit also arrives amid broader global scrutiny of encrypted messaging platforms and growing tensions between privacy protections, data governance, and regulatory oversight.
For Meta, the case adds to mounting legal and regulatory pressure across multiple fronts, including antitrust investigations, AI governance scrutiny, child safety concerns, and questions around data handling practices.
More broadly, the lawsuit highlights how encryption itself is becoming a legal and political battleground, with regulators increasingly probing not only whether encryption exists technically, but whether companies accurately represent its practical limits and surrounding data collection practices to users.
The lawsuit, filed in Harrison County court, accuses Meta and WhatsApp of falsely marketing the app as secure and encrypted while allegedly retaining access to extensive user communications data.
According to the complaint, WhatsApp “markets its services as secure and encrypted, but it does not deliver on those promises,” Paxton said in a statement.
Meta denied the allegations. Company spokesperson Andy Stone said WhatsApp cannot access users’ encrypted communications and described the lawsuit’s claims as false.
The case centers on one of the most sensitive issues in the modern technology industry: whether end-to-end encrypted platforms truly operate in a manner users understand and expect.
WhatsApp has long promoted end-to-end encryption as a core privacy feature, meaning messages can only be read by senders and recipients, not by the platform itself. The Texas lawsuit, however, argues that the scope of data accessible to Meta undermines those assurances and misleads consumers about how private their communications actually are.
The suit seeks financial penalties and a court order preventing Meta and WhatsApp from accessing Texans’ WhatsApp messages without explicit consent.
Texas also cited media reports about a federal investigation into Meta’s handling of WhatsApp data, along with a whistleblower complaint submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The lawsuit was filed under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and represents the latest escalation in Paxton’s increasingly aggressive campaign against major technology companies over privacy and consumer protection issues.
Texas has emerged as one of the most active U.S. states pursuing Big Tech through state-level litigation. Paxton’s office previously secured a $1.375 billion settlement from Google over alleged data privacy violations, and earlier this month sued Netflix over claims involving consumer and children’s data collection practices.
The WhatsApp lawsuit also arrives amid broader global scrutiny of encrypted messaging platforms and growing tensions between privacy protections, data governance, and regulatory oversight.
For Meta, the case adds to mounting legal and regulatory pressure across multiple fronts, including antitrust investigations, AI governance scrutiny, child safety concerns, and questions around data handling practices.
More broadly, the lawsuit highlights how encryption itself is becoming a legal and political battleground, with regulators increasingly probing not only whether encryption exists technically, but whether companies accurately represent its practical limits and surrounding data collection practices to users.
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