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Facebook will soon be able to scan your texts – sparking privacy panic

FACEBOOK is working on a way to analyse encrypted messages without fully reading what they say, according to a new report.

It’s said the company is looking into a technique called “homomorphic encryption”, which could allow it to get an idea of the contents of a message without actually accessing the text itself.

AFPFacebook is said to be working on a message scanning tool that could help with targeted advertising[/caption]

According to The Information, the approach could help Facebook bring encryption and ads together.

The new technique could technically let Facebook and third parties analyse encrypted messages without accessing the raw data.

Facebook owns the popular end-to-end encrypted platform WhatsApp.

However, the head of WhatsApp has spoken out against the report by The Information.

He tweeted: “We’re not pursuing homomorphic encryption for @WhatsApp. I’ve been asked this before (link below).

“We should be skeptical of technical claims that apps like ours could see messages in “good” cases only. That’s just not how technology works.”

Facebook told The Information that it’s “too early for us to consider homomorphic encryption for WhatsApp at this time”.

He added a link to a recent YouTube video in which he discusses privacy and encryption on WhatsApp.

However, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t use the tech on Instagram DMs or Facebook Messenger which aren’t currently encrypted.

Other companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are also said to be working on homomorphic encryption.

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