Facebook encrypts Messenger calls in privacy move

San Francisco: Facebook on Friday began rolling out encryption for voice or video calls made through its Messenger texting app, ratcheting up privacy for users.

The move comes as the sanctity of data on smartphones becomes an increasingly sensitive topic.

Encrypting text chats on Messenger has been an option since 2016.

The number of audio or video calls made on Messenger has surged since then to more than 150 million daily, prompting Facebook to add the option of scrambling exchanges from one end to the other to prevent snooping.

“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,” Messenger director of product management Ruth Kricheli said in a blog post.