{"id":396,"date":"2024-12-31T17:28:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-31T21:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/whitecollarcriminallaw\/?p=396"},"modified":"2026-04-24T17:35:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T21:35:36","slug":"government-agencies-send-mixed-messages-on-ephemeral-messaging-placing-regulated-entities-in-apparent-double-bind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/whitecollarcriminallaw\/2024\/12\/31\/government-agencies-send-mixed-messages-on-ephemeral-messaging-placing-regulated-entities-in-apparent-double-bind\/","title":{"rendered":"Government Agencies Send Mixed Messages on Ephemeral Messaging, Placing Regulated Entities in Apparent Double Bind"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Officials with the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (\u201cCISA\u201d) recently recommended<\/a> Americans use encrypted messaging apps in response to the Salt Typhoon cyberattack that infiltrated at least eight U.S. telecommunications companies.\u00a0 In a news call to address the Salt Typhoon attack, Jeff Greene, the executive assistant director for cybersecurity at CISA, stated, \u201cEncryption is your friend,\u201d and an official with the FBI added that \u201cresponsibly managed encryption\u201d benefits users who wish to protect their mobile device communications.\u00a0 These statements acknowledge that ephemeral messaging, which generally refers to messaging applications that employ \u201cend-to-end encryption\u201d or auto-delete technology, minimizes the risk of falling victim to a cyberattack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But these recommendations and statements in favor of the legitimate benefits of encrypted messaging apps in enhancing a cybersecurity posture, may appear inconsistent with other statements disfavoring the use of such apps to conduct business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

For instance, in January 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (\u201cFTC\u201d) and Justice Department updated their document preservation requirements<\/a> to require preservation of data from ephemeral messaging apps, with a DOJ official observing these platforms are \u201cdesigned to hide evidence.\u201d In November 2024, the DOJ Antitrust Division updated its guidance<\/a> on how it evaluates company compliance programs and included new information on the use and preservation of ephemeral messaging platforms. Now, in evaluating an antitrust compliance program, the Antitrust Division considers what \u201celectronic communication channels\u201d the company and its employees use for business purposes, how the company manages and preserves information contained within each of the electronic communication channels, whether the company has clear guidelines regarding the use of \u201cephemeral messaging or noncompany methods of communication,\u201d and what preservation or deletion settings are available and the company\u2019s rationale for those settings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FTC and DOJ are not alone in discouraging ephemeral messaging\u2014the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission touted<\/a> obtaining more than $600 million in fines in 2024 for \u201crecordkeeping cases,\u201d which primarily focused on off-channel communications. In the press release announcing its annual enforcement results, the SEC observed that compliance with the recordkeeping requirements of the federal securities laws \u201cis essential to investor protection and well-functioning markets.\u201d\u00a0 The failure to preserve off-channel communications also \u201cdeprives the SEC of these communications in its investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Companies should not have to make a choice between cybersecurity guidance from the government on the one hand, and complying with general compliance guidance from the government on the other.\u00a0 Companies should evaluate carefully how they can avoid such a dilemma in developing and implementing compliance programs that address the use of messaging apps, and how to best ensure that they are able to leverage encryption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Officials with the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (\u201cCISA\u201d) recently recommended Americans use encrypted messaging apps in response to the Salt Typhoon cyberattack that infiltrated at least eight U.S. telecommunications companies.\u00a0 In a news call to address the Salt Typhoon attack, Jeff Greene, the executive assistant director for cybersecurity at CISA, stated, \u201cEncryption … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Government Agencies Send Mixed Messages on Ephemeral Messaging, Placing Regulated Entities in Apparent Double Bind”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"[]"},"categories":[2],"tags":[340,147,92,113,138,169,341,154,337,338,339,335,43,217,11],"ppma_author":[246],"class_list":["post-396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-antitrust-division","tag-compliance","tag-cybersecurity","tag-department-of-justice","tag-doj","tag-encryption","tag-ephemeral-messaging","tag-fbi","tag-federal-trade-commission","tag-ftc","tag-justice-department","tag-off-channel-communications","tag-sec","tag-u-s-department-of-justice","tag-white-collar"],"authors":[{"term_id":246,"user_id":61,"is_guest":0,"slug":"dwalworth","display_name":"Daniel R. Walworth","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/whitecollarcriminallaw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/01\/walworthdaniel-125x150.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":"","9":"","10":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/whitecollarcriminallaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/whitecollarcriminallaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/whitecollarcriminallaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/whitecollarcriminallaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/whitecollarcriminallaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/whitecollarcriminallaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/whitecollarcriminallaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/whitecollarcriminallaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/whitecollarcriminallaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/whitecollarcriminallaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}