Facebook has announced that it is extending its end-to-end encryption feature for Messenger voice and video calls. The security feature has been in demand as it prevents eavesdropping by third parties. The feature has been available for messaging service of the social media giant. The feature was introduced for messaging services in 2016. Despite being under constant pressure from governments to roll back the feature, the social media giant has decided to expand the purview of the feature. The end-to-end encryption is now available for both voice calls as well as video calls on Messenger. This means, nobody would ever know what you are seeing or listening to. Not only this, the company has said that it is testing the feature on one-on-one DM conversations in the photo-sharing app Instagram.
Product management director for Messenger Ruth Kricheli said that end-to-end encryption is becoming the industry standard. “This feature is already in use by instant messaging app WhatsApp. The end-to-end encryption keeps personal conversations safe from the third party – including hackers and criminals. It works like a key and lock. So, only the people who are in the conversation or call would have access to the conversation.” The company is also working on some other end-to-end encryption features. Facebook is likely to soon test the feature for group chats and calls in Messengers in the near future. As far as Instagram is concerned, the feature would be available under opt-in settings.
Beyond this feature, Facebook is also working on expiring message feature updates. This is similar to the ephemeral feature already present in WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook. The company is now working on providing more options. One of them is the option to choose an amount of time before all new messages would disappear from the chat history. This time duration that will be available is from as few as five seconds to as long as an entire day. The development comes just days after Facebook has again updated its privacy settings.
Carolyn is a technology graduate and loves to write about anything related to technology as well as writes in others sectors. Carolyn is a professional writer with over 7 years of experience. Initially starting off as a programmer, Carolyn decided to combine her knowledge about technology and writing and that’s how she joined Reporter Expert.
