The Texas Attorney General’s Office filed legal action Thursday against the messaging platform WhatsApp and its parent corporation Meta Platforms Inc, claiming the companies deceived users regarding the security and extent of WhatsApp’s encryption technology. A Meta representative has disputed these claims.
Court documents filed in Harrison County assert that WhatsApp and Meta provide false assurances to users about message encryption while maintaining access to nearly all private conversations on the messaging platform.
“WhatsApp markets its services as secure and encrypted, but it does not deliver on those promises,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.
Meta representative Andy Stone responded on social media that the lawsuit contains false claims and that WhatsApp cannot access users’ encrypted conversations.
The legal action requests a court directive preventing Meta and WhatsApp from accessing Texas residents’ WhatsApp communications without permission, along with financial penalties.
Texas’ complaint references media coverage of a federal probe into allegations that Meta could access unencrypted WhatsApp communications and a whistleblower complaint filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The case was brought under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, which serves as the state’s primary consumer protection statute.
Paxton’s office has pursued multiple comparable data privacy cases against major technology firms, including Google, which agreed in May 2025 to pay $1.375 billion to resolve allegations of user data privacy violations.
On May 11, Paxton’s office initiated legal proceedings against Netflix, accusing the streaming service of surveillance activities targeting children and other users by gathering their information without permission and creating an addictive platform design.
Netflix has rejected these accusations and stated the lawsuit relies on inaccurate and misleading information.
