Meta will allow users in Europe to send and receive messages to/from others on third party messaging services, while on Messenger and WhatsApp, in accordance with Digital Markets Act (DMA), a new EU anti-competition law. The law came into effect on March 7 and Meta took to a blog post to address their plans on maintaining end-to-end encryption and protecting privacy.
Meta is required to enable this within three months of receiving a request from a third party messaging service, but has said that it may take longer before the functionality is ready for public use.
The Digital Markets Act (DMA) aims to combat unfair competition in the digital sector by regulating large service providers that have emerged as “gatekeepers” in the market due to their significant economic power. For messaging service providers this translates to large companies, like Meta, enabling interoperability or allowing users to communicate with others across providers, which in turn aims to foster competition. In line with the DMA, on March 7 Meta said that in due course they will release WhatsApp Reference Offer and Messenger Reference Offer for third-party providers which will outline what will be required to interoperate with the service. Third-party providers will then be required to sign an agreement with Messenger and/or WhatsApp in order to interoperate.
What about end-to-end encryption?
Meta’s messaging services use end-to-end encryption (E2EE) to protect their users’ data. E2EE prevents third parties from accessing data in messages when it is transferred from one device to another. While Messenger is still rolling out E2EE by default for personal communication, Whatsapp has been using E2EE since 2016. Meta uses the Signal protocol for its encryption and called it, “the current gold standard for E2EE chats.” Since working with third party service providers could potentially raise security concerns, Meta has said that in order to preserve user security they “would prefer third-party providers to use the Signal Protocol.” However, they “will allow third-party providers to use a compatible protocol if they are able to demonstrate it offers the same security guarantees as Signal.”
How will Meta allow interoperability?
Meta has explained in detail how they have engineered a method to allow interoperability, using Whatsapp as an example. The blogpost said, “Third-party clients [service providers] will connect to WhatsApp servers using our [Signal ]protocol.” They will then be able to register on the Whatsapp App, where “they keep their existing user-visible identifier, and are also assigned a unique, WhatsApp-internal identifier.” Then, the third-party service providers will need to provide “proof of their user-visible identifier when they wish to connect to Whatsapp’s server.”
Whatsapp has also suggested a proxy or an “intermediary” server between a third party provider and the WhatsApp server. They said, “A proxy could potentially give third-party providers more flexibility and control over what their client can receive from the WhatsApp server.” Additionally, having a proxy nullifies the need for third parties to maintain a “chat channel.”
Flagging possible concerns
In spite of these processes, Meta has concerns. The blog post said, “Without ownership of both clients (endpoints) we cannot guarantee what a third-party provider does with sent or received messages” and thus cannot assure that messages are safely encrypted and protected. Further they said that with interoperability they would “lose connection level signals that are important for keeping users safe from spam and scams such as TCP fingerprints.”
Finally, Meta said that having a intermediary between third party provider and a Meta server could expose the “chat metadata to the proxy server, which increases the likelihood that this data could be accidentally or intentionally leaked.”
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Deepak Sen is a tech enthusiast who covers the latest technological innovations, from AI to consumer gadgets. His articles provide readers with a glimpse into the ever-evolving world of technology.
