United Kingdom, March 18 -- Instagram is to remove end-to-end encryption for private messages between users.

The social media platform's owner Meta announced on its Instagram help page that end-to-end encryption will no longer be available on direct messages between users on the site from May 8.

This means that Meta will be able to see the contents of messages between all users, whereas at present it can only do so for users who do not enable encryption.

A spokesperson for Meta explained that the decision was made to abandon end-to-end encryption because of low uptake.

They said: "Very few people were opting in to end-to-end encrypted messaging in DMs, so we're removing this option from Instagram in the coming months.

"Anyone who wan...