Yes. Status uses Waku, a peer-to-peer protocol for private, secure and censorship-resistant communication, built by the
Vac Team. Waku provides resilient messaging with zero dependence on centralized servers, data centers or service providers.
Every message is end-to-end encrypted, and broadcast to every single peer in the network. This makes it not only impossible for unintended audiences to read the content of messages, but also to see who sends messages to who. The sender information is always encrypted, rendering it impossible for Status nodes to collect any communication metadata. For private 1:1 messages, only the intended recipient of a message is able to decrypt the content. For public chats, anyone who knows the name of the chat can decrypt the content.
An additional safeguard is the use of a new encryption key with every message after the initial key exchange between users (perfect forward secrecy). If your message key is compromised, only the message for that particular key is compromised, and not for any prior messages.