The president of Sign defended the messaging app’s safety on Wednesday after prime US Trump administration officers mistakenly included a journalist in an encrypted chatroom they used to debate looming US army motion in opposition to Yemen’s Houthis.
Sign’s Meredith Whittaker didn’t immediately deal with the blunder, which Democratic lawmakers have mentioned was a breach of US nationwide safety. However she described the app because the “gold commonplace in non-public comms” in a put up on X, which outlined Sign’s safety benefits over Meta’s WhatsApp messaging app.
“We’re open supply, non-profit, and we develop and apply [end-to-end encryption] and privacy-preserving tech throughout our system to guard metadata and message contents,” she mentioned.
Sign has been rising in reputation in Europe, the US and elsewhere as a substitute for WhatsApp as a result of it collects little or no knowledge about its customers.
Based on knowledge from Sensor Tower, a market intelligence agency, US downloads of Sign within the first three months of 2025 had been up 16% in comparison with the prior quarter, and 25% in comparison with the identical interval in 2024.
In a February interview with De Telegraaf, a Dutch newspaper, Whittaker mentioned Sign was a safer different as a result of WhatsApp collects metadata that can be utilized to see who messages whom, and the way typically.
No logs
“When compelled, like all corporations that acquire the info to start with, they flip this vital, revealing knowledge over,” Whittaker mentioned in her put up on X.
In a press release, a WhatsApp spokesman mentioned it depends on metadata to forestall spam and “hold the service protected from abuse”.
Learn: Sign messaging app about to get much more safe
“We don’t hold logs of who everyone seems to be messaging or calling and don’t observe the non-public messages individuals are sending each other for advertisements,” the assertion mentioned. — James Pearson, with Katie Paul, (c) 2025 Reuters
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