This variance may explain why the document refers to the apps as “secure” instead of “E2EE.”

And WeChat, owned by Chinese giant Tencent, does not support end-to-end encryption at all (just client-to-server encryption). E2EE is on by default in newer versions of LINE, but it may not be turned on in older clients. As for the rest, Telegram uses default end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in some contexts, but not others. Most of these apps- iMessage, Signal, Threema, Viber, WhatsApp, and Wickr-end-to-end encrypt messages by default. The apps included in the chart are iMessage, LINE, Signal, Telegram, Threema, Viber, WeChat, WhatsApp (owned by Meta, fka Facebook), and Wickr (which was acquired by AWS in June). 7, 2021, the document states that it reflects FBI capabilities as of November 2020. Kudos to government-transparency nonprofit Property of the People (POTP), run by “FOIA guru” Ryan Shapiro and indefatigable lawyer Jeffrey Light, for obtaining this record under the Freedom of Information Act.ĭated Jan. The one-page document should give useful guidance to privacy-conscious people – including journalists, whistleblowers, and activists – while also helping to dispel misconceptions about the FBI’s surveillance capabilities (or lack thereof) in the encrypted messaging context.

Exactly what’s available, though, varies widely by app.

It shows that with legal process, the FBI can get various types of metadata, and in some cases even stored message content. federal law enforcement obtain from providers of encrypted messaging services? A recently disclosed January 2021 document from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) supplies a concise summary with respect to nine different “secure messaging” apps.

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