Texas AG Sues WhatsApp Over Encryption Claims

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suit accusing WhatsApp of overstating its encryption protections.

On May 21, 2026, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued WhatsApp, alleging the Meta-owned messaging giant misled users about the scope of its end-to-end encryption. The state claims WhatsApp's representations gave users the impression all their data—including backups—were protected, while that was not the case for years.

• The complaint asserts that until October 2021, when users backed up WhatsApp chats to Google Drive or Apple iCloud, those backups were not end-to-end encrypted, allowing unintended third-party access.
• This followed a 2016 implementation of end-to-end encryption for in-app messages, but not for backup files outside WhatsApp itself, as acknowledged in a 2016 Google memo.
• WhatsApp began offering encrypted backup options in October 2021, letting users secure their backups with passwords or encryption keys stored in-app, thus extending privacy protections to those files according to public records.

The Texas suit intensifies scrutiny of big tech privacy claims and is likely to inform compliance approaches for other messaging platforms. Companies are being pushed to clarify their data protection practices—not just in primary services but across integrated storage and backup features.