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Instagram will stop encrypting private messages between users from May, after enduring years of criticism from law enforcement and child safety groups over the feature.
Meta quietly announced this month on its help page for Instagram and in an updated 2022 news post that end-to-end encryption would no longer be available on direct messages between users on Instagram from 8 May 2026.
It means Meta will be able to see the contents of messages between all users – which so far it only could for those who did not enable encryption.
The feature already appeared deactivated for Australian users, when Guardian Australia tested on Wednesday.
A spokesperson for Meta said the decision to abandon encryption was due to low uptake.
“Very few people were opting in to end-to-end encrypted messaging in DMs, so we’re removing this option from Instagram in the coming months,” the spokesperson said. “Anyone who wants to keep messaging with end-to-end encryption can easily do that on WhatsApp.”
Meta’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, first flagged plans to roll out end-to-end encryption across Meta’s suite of platforms in 2019, but did not begin implementing it until 2023.
Meta had endured criticism from child safety groups and an alliance of law enforcement – including the FBI, Interpol, the UK’s National Crime Agency and the Australian federal police – who argued it would weaken the ability to keep children safe online.
A spokesperson for the Australian eSafety commissioner’s office said strong encryption plays an important role in protecting privacy and security but where deployed, platforms should also prevent, detect and respond to harm.
“Where end-to-end encryption is implemented without appropriate safety measures, it can increase safety risks and prevent the identification of harms such as child sexual exploitation, and terrorism and violent extremism,” the spokesperson said.
“Ultimately, whether to deploy end-to-end encryption is a business and design choice for platforms, but it does not remove a platform’s responsibility to prevent harm.”
Tom Sulston, head of policy at Digital Rights Watch, said rather than acceding to law enforcement demands, the move was more likely due to Meta deciding against moving messaging on WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram to a single platform.
“The fact that WhatsApp is staying encrypted suggests that Meta might be pivoting to segregating social media from chat a bit more – the main distinction being that social media users can discover each other, whereas chat users need to know each other first,” he said.
Money was also likely a factor, he said, with Meta potentially able to use message contents to determine advertising and train chatbots.
“They may not be doing that now, but the commercial pressure to do it is huge, so it feels inevitable that they will if they’re not already,” he said.
Sulston said more tech companies, not less, should be moving to end-to-end encryption.
“Why not improve the product, rather than continue to enshittify it?”
