WASHINGTON — The former head of security for WhatsApp filed a lawsuit Monday accusing Meta of ignoring major security and privacy flaws that put billions of the messaging app’s users at risk, the latest in a string of whistleblower allegations against the social media giant.
In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Attaullah Baig claimed that thousands of WhatsApp and Meta employees could gain access to sensitive user data including profile pictures, location, group memberships and contact lists. Meta, which owns WhatsApp, also failed to adequately address the hacking of more than 100,000 accounts each day and rejected his proposals for security fixes, according to the lawsuit.
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Baig tried to warn Meta’s top leaders, including its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, that users were being harmed by the security weaknesses, according to the lawsuit. In response, his managers retaliated and fired him in February, he claims.
Baig, who is represented by the whistleblower organization Psst.org and the law firm Schonbrun, Seplow, Harris, Hoffman & Zeldes, argued in the suit that the actions violated a privacy settlement Meta reached with the Federal Trade Commission in 2019, as well as securities laws that require companies to disclose risks to shareholders.
“There are just so many harms that the users face,” Baig said in an interview last week, adding that he had also...
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