Report Slams Snapchat, Skype Over Encryption

Think Snapchat and Skype are protecting your conversations with the latest and greatest security technologies? Think again.

A new report from Amnesty International accuses Snapchat and Skype owner Microsoft of "failing to adopt basic privacy protections on their instant messaging services, putting users' human rights at risk." The organization's new "Message Privacy Ranking" assesses 11 of the most popular messaging apps on their use of encryption to protect users' privacy, and found that the two aforementioned services are among the worst.

"Our communications are under constant threat from cybercriminals and spying by state authorities," Sherif Elsayed-Ali, Head of Amnesty International's Technology and Human Rights Team, said in a statement. "Young people, the most prolific sharers of personal details and photos over apps like Snapchat, are especially at risk."

Snapchat declined to comment when contacted by PCMag. Most Snapchat content is deleted from the company's servers within a short timeframe.

Microsoft, in a statement to PCMag, said it agrees with Amnesty International about the importance of encryption.

"At the same time, this report does not accurately reflect Skype's comprehensive work to protect people's privacy and security," Redmond's spokesperson said. "Skype uses encryption and a range of other technical security measures, and we protect people's privacy through legal challenges, advocacy, and strong policies."

Amnesty International says that messaging apps should, at minimum, leverage end-to-end encryption, which scrambles data so that only the sender and recipient can see it. Skype, Snapchat, Google Hangouts, and BlackBerry Messenger are all lacking this security technology. Instead, these apps offer transport encryption, which Amnesty International says is less effective at protecting privacy.

"Both models of encryption are hard to break, but unlike end-to-end encryption, transport encryption does not protect messages when they pass through company servers," the organization explained.

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On the other end of the spectrum, Amnesty International ranked WhatsApp, iMessage, FaceTime, Line, Google Duo, and Viber the best at protecting privacy for enabling end-to-end encryption by default.

"No company provides watertight privacy, but Facebook, whose apps Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp together have 2 billion users, has the highest score," the organization wrote in its announcement. "Facebook is doing the most out of the 11 companies assessed to use encryption to respond to human rights threats, and is most transparent about the action it's taking."

But while Facebook's Messenger app offers end-to-end encryption, it's not on by default because that breaks some features. Amnesty International is calling on companies to not only apply end-to-end encryption to their messaging apps, but enable it by default.

Google and BlackBerry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.