Security News > 2020 > May > Facebook Announces Messenger Security Features that Don't Compromise Privacy

Facebook today announced new features for Messenger that will alert you when messages appear to come from financial scammers or potential child abusers, displaying warnings in the Messenger app that provide tips and suggest you block the offenders.

The feature, which Facebook started rolling out on Android in March and is now bringing to iOS, uses machine learning analysis of communications across Facebook Messenger's billion-plus users to identify shady behaviors.

Facebook has said it will eventually roll out that end-to-end encryption to all Messenger chats by default.

A Facebook spokesperson tells WIRED the detection mechanisms are based on metadata alone: who is talking to whom, when they send messages, with what frequency, and other attributes of the relevant accounts - essentially everything other than the content of communications, which Facebook's servers can't access when those messages are encrypted.

One screenshot from Facebook shows an alert that asks if a message recipient knows a potential scammer.

News URL

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/facebook_announ.html