If you have taken a step to secure yourself in the digital space, you would have come across Signal. The privacy-focused messaging app has experienced a heavy flow of traffic in recent times as users have started migrating away from WhatsApp to Telegram and Signal over privacy issues. Signal’s end-to-end encryption and privacy-preserving technology has stood out in these times of need.
But in a recent turn of events in the US, Signal has decided to take a stand for itself. In a blog post dated the 8th of April, Signal announced that they are against the EARN IT Act, currently being considered by Congress. An excerpt from the blog post says:
“Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects online platforms in the United States from legal liability for the behavior of their users. In the absence of this protection, many of the apps and services that are critical to the way the Internet functions today may have never been created in the first place – or they couldn’t have been created in America.”
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Since inception, Signal has been transparent about their practices and has an open-source code. The app is also recommended United States Military and regularly used by the government officials of the country. This act comes as a testing time for Signal. The act directly undermines the encryption schemes of the app, to give direct access to law enforcement. It would be interesting to see where this takes us.
Additional read: Privacy implications of Zoom conference.
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