Messengers
Facebook Messenger privacy rating
Meta's messaging app for Facebook accounts, with chats, groups, voice and video calls. Personal chats and calls are end-to-end encrypted by default.
Summary
Facebook Messenger scores 19 out of 100 (grade F) on the messengers criteria. It meets 1 of 8 criteria: no phone number needed. It partly meets end-to-end encrypted by default. It does not meet open source, no trackers or telemetry, no ads or data sales, independent audit, metadata protection and decentralized. It is based in the United States: Five Eyes member; subject to the US CLOUD Act.
Score 19 out of 100. How scoring works
Criteria
- No
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No
No trackers or telemetry Weight 3 of 3
Are the website and apps free of third-party trackers, with any analytics anonymous and any telemetry off by default?
Exodus finds Google Analytics, Mapbox and Facebook SDK components in the Android app.
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No
No ads or data sales Weight 2 of 3
Is the product funded without advertising, ad targeting or selling user data?
Funded by advertising; Messenger shows ads and Meta uses account activity to personalize ads.
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No
Independent audit Weight 2 of 3
Has an independent security or privacy audit been published within the last three years?
No independent audit is published.
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Partial
End-to-end encrypted by default Weight 3 of 3
Are all chats, including groups, end-to-end encrypted by default?
Personal chats and calls are end-to-end encrypted by default, but not every chat type is, such as chats with businesses and community chats.
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Yes
No phone number needed Weight 2 of 3
Can an account be created without a phone number?
Messenger requires a Facebook account, which can be created with an email address instead of a phone number.
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No
Metadata protection Weight 2 of 3
Does the service minimize who-talks-to-whom metadata (for example sealed sender or no user identifiers)?
Meta's servers see who talks to whom.
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No
Decentralized Weight 1 of 3
Can people run their own server or talk peer to peer?
One central service run by Meta.