Meta lets more people enjoy end-to-end encryption on Messenger

Meta has been testing end-to-end encryption on Messenger for a few years now, so only a limited number of users had access to this important security feature. The reason it takes Meta so long to roll out end-to-end encryption for all Messenger users is that the transitioning to E2EE is “an incredibly complex and challenging engineering puzzle.”Ever since it started to work on E2EE back in 2019, Meta’s engineers realized that they would need to rewrite almost the entire messaging and calling code base from scratch.

Messenger and Instagram DMs have been initially designed to function via servers. In this regard, Meta’s servers act as the gateway between the message sender and receiver. Unfortunately, with E2EE, Meta couldn’t rely on servers to process and validate messages, which is why it had to redesign the entire system to make it work without Meta’s servers that could read the content of the messages.

Meta also had to design new ways for users to manage their message history, including setting up a PIN. The bottom line is Meta rebuilt more than 100 features in Messenger, which now provides its users with one of the richest chat experiences available.

Although Meta is not yet ready with E2EE integration, it allowed some Messenger users into the testing program. Today, the social media company announced that it has expanded testing for end-to-end encryption on Messenger.

No other details as to who exactly is getting E2EE integration have been provided yet, but we do know that the security features should be available as standard to all users by the end of this year.