TL;DR The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s new “Encrypt It Already” campaign pressures Apple, Google, Meta, and others to make strong encryption the default.
EFF is calling out stalled features like encrypted group chats, cross-platform RCS security, and private DMs on newer platforms.
EFF is giving people tools and templates to publicly demand better privacy from major platforms.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has started a new campaign urging major tech companies to keep their privacy promises and make strong encryption the default for everyone.
In a move that echoes its 2019 “Fix It Already” campaign, the digital rights nonprofit is calling out specific failures from Apple, Google, Meta, and others, challenging them to turn vague commitments into concrete privacy features for everyone.
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is considered the best way to protect privacy. It means only you and the person you’re talking to can read your messages or see your data — not the service provider, advertisers, or even government agencies. You see this in practice with WhatsApp and Signal chats, or with Apple’s Advanced Data Protection for iCloud, where you hold the encryption keys.
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Even though E2EE works well, it is still hard to find or hidden in settings. The EFF’s new “Encrypt It Already” campaign says this needs to change. Privacy should be built in, not something you have to search for. The campaign lists three main demands for top tech companies and points out exactly which features are missing, delayed, or hard to find. Keep your promises: This demand is for features that companies have already announced but haven’t delivered. The EFF wants Facebook to add E2EE for group messages, and it asks Apple and Google to provide E2EE for RCS that works across platforms (as we speak, Apple is apparently working on end-to-end encryption for RCS in iOS 26.3 Beta 2). The group also urges Bluesky to add E2EE for direct messages, as it said it would.
Defaults matter: Here, the tech exists but isn’t turned on for you. Telegram famously offers Secret Chats, but its standard direct messages are not end-to-end encrypted by default. WhatsApp has E2EE chats, but doesn’t apply it to your chat backups by default. Even home security is implicated, with a call for Ring to make E2EE for camera footage the standard setting.
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