Starting today, end-to-end encryption (E2EE) is no longer available for direct messages on Instagram, as Meta has removed the privacy feature years after it began testing it.
According to Meta, end-to-end encryption on Instagram was going away because "very few people" were using it. This was not a surprise since the feature was a manual opt-in that was buried in chat settings on a per-conversation basis. The company's official line is that anyone who wanted hardcore encrypted chats could just switch to WhatsApp, and that anyone "impacted by this change" would see instructions on how to download any media or messages they want to keep before the system shuts them out.
E2EE basically means that only the sender and the recipient can decode and read a message, shielding it from hackers, law enforcement, and even the platform hosting the chat. Even though E2EE on Instagram is basically gone, all chats will still be encrypted with the standard transport-level encryption. This protects your data as it travels between your device and Meta's servers, but it means Meta holds the key and can absolutely read your DMs on its end.
E2EE has faced serious criticisms from child safety groups and law enforcement, who argued it created a digital black box for predators. A lawsuit filed by New Mexico's Attorney General revealed internal documents from 2019 that showed Meta's Head of Content Policy, Monika Bickert, warning her team that E2EE would prevent the company from finding child exploitation. She wrote in a chat, "We are about to do a bad thing as a company. This is so irresponsible."
Two months ago, TikTok came out to confirm it would never add E2EE to its direct messages, a decision that got a round of applause from child safety advocates. The company argued that keeping messages readable on its servers is a necessary safety feature because its user base is overwhelmingly young. Like Instagram, TikTok is using standard transport-level encryption to protect messages while they are in transit.
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