Facebook Messenger is adding end-to-end encryption for voice and video calls

Facebook has announced that it is rolling out support for end-to-end encrypted video calls and audio calls to Facebook Messenger.

The company has also updated controls for disappearing messages. The social media giant has announced the new update in a blog post.

“People expect their messaging apps to be secure and private, and with these new features, we’re giving them more control over how private they want their calls and chats to be. In the past year, we’ve seen a surge in the use of audio and video calling with more than 150 million video calls a day on Messenger. Now we’re introducing calling to this chat mode so you can secure your audio and video calls with this same technology if you choose,” Ruth Kricheli, director of product management for Messenger, said in a blog post on Friday.

As of now, only one-on-one text chats were end-to-end encrypted and now the same is available for calls. This basically means that “nobody else, including Facebook, can see or listen to what’s sent or said.”

Apart from E2EE, Facebook has added more options as to how users can control the disappearing messages feature on Messenger. Users will now be able to set a timer – between 5 seconds and 24 hours – after which the messages will vanish from the receiver’s device.

Facebook also said it will also be testing end-to-end encryption for group chats in the near future.