WhatsApp dodges lawsuit over message privacy

A federal judge said there wasn't enough evidence that Meta employees can access users’ private WhatsApp messages.SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A federal judge Friday dismissed claims against Meta from a class of users who say they had evidence from unnamed whistleblowers that the tech giant lied about its promise that all WhatsApp communications are private and fully encrypted.U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ruled there was insufficient information in the complaint about the basis for the whistleblowers’ knowledge for the claims to advance at this stage.“Though plaintiffs need not identify the whistleblowers to plead a plausible basis for their claims, they do need to provide some facts supporting an inference that the whistleblowers have firsthand knowledge or some other reliable basis for their accusations,” the Joe Biden appointee wrote.Lin gave plaintiffs until Aug. 13 to file an amended complaint.WhatsApp, which was purchased by Meta in 2014, is a widely used social media platform that allows users to send messages and make voice and video calls over the internet.WhatsApp advertises it uses end-to-end encryption to keep users’ communications private from everyone except message senders and recipients and that no one else — including WhatsApp itself — can view users’ communications.The plaintiffs, users of WhatsApp who live around the world, sued Meta on behalf of a proposed class in January, claiming “courageous whistleblowers” had provided them with evidence WhatsApp and Meta have access to the majority of users’ supposedly private communications.To access users’ messages, they claimed Meta employees only have to send a “task” to a Meta engineer explaining they need to access WhatsApp messages for their job. Then, they say, the Meta engineering team will grant the employee access “often without any scrutiny at all,” allowing the employee to pull up any users’ WhatsApp messages based on their User ID number.The plaintiffs further claim Meta employees also had access to communications of higher-profile WhatsApp users, such as celebrities, politicians and Meta employees; however, accessing their accounts would flag an employee for investigation.“The gravity of Meta’s and WhatsApp’s violation of users’ privacy and trust cannot be overstated,” the plaintiffs said in their complaint.Plaintiffs brought a total of ten claims against Meta, including violation of the federal Wiretap Act, California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act and California Invasion of Privacy Act, as well as state invasion of privacy, breach of contract and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing claims.Meta moved to dismiss plaintiffs’ claims and requested sanctions, arguing the complaint is “factually baseless.”In the 19-page opinion, Lin tossed certain claims “grounded in fraud” because they failed to meet heightened pleading requirements for fraud, specifically the “‘who, what, when, where, and how” of the misconduct charged.The plaintiffs’ Wiretap Act claim was scrapped because the plaintiffs failed to provide evidence Meta can access users’ encrypted WhatsApp communications beyond “whistleblowers here have explained,” the judge wrote.“Where there are essentially no other non-conclusory factual allegations providing a basis for plaintiffs’ assertions regarding defendants’ ability to access users’ messages, the complaint needs to describe some basic facts about how each whistleblower knows about what they have described, and if the knowledge is not firsthand, why it is otherwise plausibly inferred to be reliable,” she wrote.Other surviving non-fraud claims were dismissed because Lin said the plaintiffs failed to claim the defendants breached their promises regarding the privacy of WhatsApp messages, received and unjustly retained a benefit at their expense or obtained users’ messages in a manner constituting theft.However, Lin rejected Meta’s motion for sanctions, finding that Meta’s evidence that it cannot access the encrypted messages does not “conclusively preclude the possibility that the whistleblowers’ allegations are true.”A spokesperson for WhatsApp praised the ruling, telling Courthouse News the lawsuit “has always been a complete work of fiction.”“We’re pleased that in dismissing it, the judge found that the plaintiffs failed to provide facts or sufficient information. Any claim that people’s WhatsApp messages are not encrypted is categorically false and absurd,” they said.A representative for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads