Facebook adds end-to-end encryption to audio and video calls in Messenger

Facebook has announced today that it is rolling out support for end-to-end encrypted video calls and audio calls to Facebook Messenger. The company is also planning changes for Instagram direct messages and will begin rolling out those features soon.

The company says:

Since 2016, we’ve offered the option to secure your one-on-one text chats with end-to-end encryption. In the past year, we’ve seen a surge in the use of audio and video calling with more than 150 million video calls a day on Messenger. Now we’re introducing calling to this chat mode so you can secure your audio and video calls with this same technology, if you choose.

The content of your messages and calls in an end-to-end encrypted conversation is protected from the moment it leaves your device to the moment it reaches the receiver’s device. This means that nobody else, including Facebook, can see or listen to what’s sent or said. Keep in mind, you can report an end-to-end encrypted message to us if something’s wrong.

End-to-end encryption is rolling out to a “limited test” group of adults in “certain countries” for Instagram direct messages. “Similar to how Messenger works today, you need to have an existing chat or be following each other to start an end-to-end encrypted DM,” Facebook explains.

And coming in the future, Facebook says that it will also soon begin testing end-to-end encryption for video and audio group chats in Facebook Messenger.

Finally, Facebook says it is updating the controls around Disappearing Messages with more granularity:

We’ve also updated the expiring message feature within our end-to-end encrypted chats. People don’t always want or need their messages to stick around and the timer controls let someone decide when their messages expire in the chat. We’ve updated this setting to provide more options for people in the chat to choose the amount of time before all new messages disappear, from as few as 5 seconds to as long as 24 hours.

You can read the full breakdown of announcements in the Facebook blog post right here.