Meta’s announcement comes after years of criticism from child safety groups over feature.
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.
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.
