Google admits Hangouts doesn’t use end-to-end encryption, opening the door for government wiretaps

If you’re really worried the government may be keeping tabs on your conversations, then you’d best avoid Hangouts.

According to Motherboard, a Google representative confirmed that Hangouts conversations are only encrypted “in transit,” meaning after the message arrives at the intended recipient Google could access it if forced to do so by a government wiretap. 

The question arose from a Reddit AMA with two senior members of Google’s public policy and legal team. An ACLU representative pinned them down about encryption, but wasn’t able to get them to detail if all messages were encrypted from end-to-end.

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