Instagram discontinued its end-to-end encrypted direct messaging on Friday, ending a feature Meta first introduced on Facebook Messenger seven years ago in 2019.
Instagram did not make a public announcement about the removal, choosing instead to quietly update terms and conditions back in March of this year.
The company stated that end-to-end encrypted messaging on Instagram would no longer be supported after 8 May 2026, with affected users given instructions to download their content.
Why the feature was removed
Meta said the encryption feature was being rolled back due to underutilisation, as it had only ever been offered to Instagram users as an optional, non-default setting.
End-to-end encryption allows messages to be read only by the sending and receiving devices, preventing any third party, including the platform itself, from accessing the content.
Meta had previously described the technology as the gold standard in privacy, but the feature faced sustained opposition from law enforcement agencies and child safety organisations.
Reactions from child safety and privacy groups
Rani Govender of the UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children told the BBC her organisation was very pleased with the decision from Meta to remove it.
Privacy campaigner Maya Thomas said her team viewed the removal as a step backwards and expressed concern that Meta may be yielding to pressure applied by government authorities.
Where E2EE remains in use
Meta completed rolling out end-to-end encryption across Facebook Messenger in 2023, where it remains the default messaging method and has not been affected by this change.
WhatsApp, also owned by Meta, continues to use end-to-end encryption as its standard method of data transmission for all messages sent across the platform.
Other platforms including Signal, Apple’s iMessage and Google Messages all use end-to-end encryption by default, while Telegram offers it only as an optional feature for users.
The removal came just two weeks after rival platform TikTok publicly confirmed it had no current plans to introduce end-to-end encryption for its own messaging features.
