Facebook announces new encryption standards

Social media juggernaut Facebook has announced that it will begin offering “end-to-end” encryption on the site’s Messenger app. This will enable users to have private conversations that are accessible only between the sender and the recipient on specified devices.

Facebook vice president David Marcus posted on his profile that “Providing more ways for people to safely share is an important part of making the world more open and connected. Whether you’re asking a doctor for medical advice, sending sensitive account information to your spouse, or even your Social Security number, it’s important to have options available for sharing these kinds of very sensitive messages.”

Facebook currently offers end-to-end encryption on it’s WhatsApp messenger. Other tech giants like Google and Apple have also planned to implement greater privacy standards.

This change comes in the midst of an ongoing public debate over privacy on social media as it relates to criminal investigations. Following the December 2015 shooting attack in San Bernardino, companies like Facebook have been under fire to make private messages available to law enforcement officials. The new encryption standards announced Friday offer a direct rebuke to those officials.

The feature will be optional because the encrypted messages can only be read on one type of device. Users who want to read a message on multiple devices – phone, tablet, computer – will need to send unencrypted messages. The feature is currently in a test run, but Facebook has plans to make it more broadly available later this summer.

Facebook Messenger has historically been one of the site’s less popular applications, offering limited features compared to similar messaging apps. David Marcus was hired from Paypal in 2014 and directly tasked with making the app competitive. Since then it has expanded its features list to include video chatting, the ability to send/receive money, and others.

By all accounts, the changes have had a huge impact. In early 2014 the app had roughly 200 million monthly users. It currently has 900 million monthly users, falling just short of WhatApp’s 1 billion monthly users. Most of the current users live in North America and Europe, but Facebook wants to expand its reach into Asian markets where other messaging apps dominate.

As the user base grows, the company hopes to make Messenger a stronger platform for connecting companies and consumers. Greater privacy is seen as one way to increase consumer trust in the product. Users may feel more comfortable sharing personal information with brands knowing that it’s been encrypted and set to automatically erase.

The encryption Facebook is using is based on the Open Whisper System’s Signal Protocol.