Facebook users can now freely receive encrypted emails containing updates, notifications, and other account information through the use of OpenPGP.

The social networking site giant had just recently announced that they have installed a new feature that will keep the sensitive messages of their one billion users from potential hackers and privacy abusers.

All these account holders can now post their PGP public keys on a particular spot in their personal profiles via the HTTPS-protected website.

PGP, short for Pretty Good Privacy, is a protocol that was invented in the 80s by Phil Zimmermann and has enabled emails since then to be sent in an encrypted form.

"We are gradually rolling out an experimental new feature that enables people to add OpenPGP public keys to their profile; these keys can be used to 'end-to-end' encrypt notification emails sent from Facebook to your preferred email accounts," said Facebook in their official statement.

Facebook users are also given the option to share OpenPGP keys from their profile, with or without enabling encrypted notifications.

However, as one report noted, not all the people who have Facebook accounts are knowledgeable about how to use the new feature and how encryption works.

As a solution to this, Facebook also included in their official statement few links to help their users to be familiarized with the OpenPGP technology.

To experience the new feature, now available worldwide, users should only go to their Facebook settings and look for the contact info section to see whether the option to add a PGP public key is already available in their accounts.

Facebook has developed a new feature that will allow its billion of users to receive encrypted emails through the use of OpenPGP technology. Sensitive information of Facebook account holders can now be safely sent across the Internet without the danger of being wrongly exposed.