Brazil frees imprisoned Facebook exec who couldn’t decrypt WhatsApp messages

(credit: Jeso Carneiro)

A Brazilian judge has ordered the release of a Facebook executive one day after he was jailed in Sio Paulo for "repeated non-compliance with court orders," according to the Agence France Presse. Facebook spokesman Matt Steinfeld confirmed to Ars that executive Diego Dzodan has indeed been released.

Dzodan was arrested (Portuguese) after apparently refusing to provide WhatsApp messages that the Brazilian police sought in connection with a drug case. Since late 2014, all WhatsApp messages sent between Android devices are end-to-end encrypted, which means that not even parent company Facebook can access their plaintext contents. (WhatsApp messges that involve an iOS device are not end-to-end encrypted.)

Judge Ruy Pinheiro described Dzodan's detention as "unlawful coercion," according to the AFP.

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