It’s been about six months since Facebook rolled out end-to-end encryption to WhatsApp and it looks like the company is finally bringing a similar level of security for its Messenger app. Known as “Secret conversations”, the messages are encrypted end-to-end so that no one else, including Facebook, can see your messages.
On top of being more secure, secret conversation also allow users to set a timer on messages so that they can disappear after the timer ends. If you’re concerned about people abusing the timer feature to send spams and such, Facebook says that you can still report conversations even after the messages have disappeared.
Sadly though, unlike end-to-end encryption on WhatsApp, secret conversation on Messenger is an opt-in feature and is available for new messages only. To send a secret conversation, you will need to compose a new message, and you’ll see a new “secret” option. Again, both sender and recipient must have the latest update in order for secret conversation to fully work.
A spokesperson from Facebook told Wired that they have just finished rolling out secret conversations to all 900 million Facebook Messenger users in the past week, so do check your respective app store for an update, and start using secret conversations. Check out Facebook for more information about its new secret conversation.
