Social Media Giant Facebook is unveiling End-to-End Encryption for Audio and Video Calls in Messenger. The company said it will be adding the new feature alongside updates to disappearing messages and a host of new encryption-related features which are being tested.

Facebook added end-to-end encryption for messages in 2016 after the introduction a “secret conversation”  option on the app. Encryption has now been added to voice and video calls, as the company says the two features have grown in popularity with about 150 million video calls made in a single day.

Facebook-owned messaging app, WhatsApp already offers end-to end encryption for its messages, voice and video calls. The feature ensures that third parties do not view the encrypted data, with the exception of the sender and the receiver.

End-to-end encryption is also available on a host of other messaging apps such as Zoom, Facetime and Signal.

The Company earlier reported that it was working on an integrated messaging system for Whatsapp, Facebook and Instagram users. Since then, the company has rolled out integrated messaging for Instagram and Facebook.
The company has so far not revealed any future plans to include Whatsapp.

Messenger is also testing a few updates for disappearing messages. Users will be able to choose when the message expires, between five seconds and 24 hours.

The company is also reportedly testing end-to-end encryption for group messages and group voice and video calls. The test will be rolled out to a limited number of users, but rolling out End-to-End Encryption for Audio and Video Calls in Messenger is certainly a good move for your as the user as it will enhance the security of its 2.89 billion monthly active user base.

Instagram to Follow

In addition, the company is also expected to kick off a limited test in certain countries that lets users opt-in to end-to-end encrypted messages and calls for one-on-one conversations on Instagram.

The moves are part of Facebook’s pivot to a privacy-focused communications platform the company announced in March 2019, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg stating that the “future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where people can be confident what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won’t stick around forever.”