Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched a lawsuit against WhatsApp and its parent company, Meta, alleging violations of data privacy laws affecting Texas residents. The announcement was made on Thursday, adding WhatsApp to a list of companies Paxton has accused of compromising user privacy.
The lawsuit claims that WhatsApp misleads its users by advertising “end-to-end encryption,” a feature that supposedly protects message content from being accessed by anyone other than the sender and recipient. This legal action follows Paxton’s recent lawsuit against Netflix concerning privacy violations and a settlement with LG Electronics regarding similar issues, all while he campaigns for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, facing incumbent John Cornyn.
“Texans deserve to know whether their private communications are indeed truly private,” Paxton stated. “WhatsApp markets its services as secure and encrypted, but it does not deliver on those promises. I am suing to protect Texans’ privacy and ensure that WhatsApp by Meta does not mislead Texans by unlawfully accessing private conversations and data.”
Meta has been under scrutiny for years, facing accusations and legal challenges suggesting that it has the capability to view private messages sent via WhatsApp. The company, which acquired WhatsApp in 2014, has consistently denied these allegations.
“WhatsApp cannot access people’s encrypted communications and any suggestion to the contrary is false,” Meta spokesperson Rachel Holland said in response to the lawsuit. “We will fight this suit as we continue defending our strong record on protecting people’s messages.”
Evidence cited in the lawsuit includes whistleblower claims suggesting that Meta does indeed have access to messages transmitted through the platform. Additionally, a federal investigation into Meta and WhatsApp was abruptly closed earlier this year after an investigator noted that there were “no limits” on the types of WhatsApp messages that could be accessed by Meta, as reported by Bloomberg.
The lawsuit is filed under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, which is designed to protect consumers. Paxton contends that Meta and WhatsApp have repeatedly misled users by asserting that their communications are encrypted when, in fact, they may not be.
This legal action, lodged in a state district court in Harrison County, seeks a permanent injunction to prevent the company from accessing users’ messages without their consent, along with a $10,000 penalty for each infringement of the consumer protection law.
Thursday’s filing represents the latest in a series of legal maneuvers by Paxton’s office against major tech corporations for allegedly collecting user data unlawfully. Earlier this month, Paxton sued Netflix, claiming the platform had gathered user information without consent and sold it to data brokers for targeted advertising. He also announced an investigation into Meta regarding claims about the privacy of audio and video from the company’s Meta Glasses.
In 2024, Meta agreed to a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas to resolve another lawsuit initiated by Paxton’s office in 2022, which accused the company of utilizing facial recognition technology without user consent. Furthermore, last year, the attorney general’s office secured a similar $1.4 billion settlement with Google for collecting user data without permission.
