Two days after instant-messaging service WhatsApp launched end-to-end encryption for all its users, the United States expressed concern and said the move should not make it easier for terrorists and cyber criminals to evade law enforcement, reported PTI.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that WhatsApp's decision doesn't change the government's policy or view of "how the federal government and the technology industry can and should be able to work together to ensure that strong encryption can be robustly deployed without giving terrorists or child pornographers or other bad actors a safe haven in cyberspace".

The US government has already battled strong resistance from tech giant Apple in court over its request to help investigators break into the iPhone of a shooter in the San Bernardino attacks. The Federal Bureau of Investigation later managed to hack into the phone with the help of an anonymous source in the last week of March, after weeks of wrangling with Apple.

WhatsApp has been working towards securing its network since much before the row, having rolled out strong encryption in portions to its users from 2014 onwards. On Monday, the Facebook-owned company had said in a blog post, “WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption ensures only you and the person you’re communicating with can read what is sent, and nobody in between, not even WhatsApp.”