Signal's new feature that allows users to store certain data on their servers for recovery purposes has some security experts threatening to stop using the app
The popular encrypted app is now going to store your contacts in the cloud. Experts are worried this compromises users' privacy. Tweets: @4thanon , @ahmed , @abortu , @drfranksauer , @lorenzofb , and @motherboard Tweets: @4thanon : Is there nothing or anyone that's fucking pure!! Now @SignalApp New PIN Feature Worries Cybersecurity Experts https://www.vice.com/... Ahmed Al Omran / @ahmed : One of the key things that set Signal apart—that it collects almost no information about its users, appears to be changing https://www.vice.com/... @abortu : @seanodiggity I knew I didn't like that pin crap. Removed signal over it. Now this article. Thoughts? https://www.vice.com/... Frank Sauer / @drfranksauer : “The changes Signal has made show how there can be a tension between messenger usability and feature set and security. It's too early to say whether you should stop using the messenger. For most users' threat models, it's still one of the best options.” https://www.vice.com/... Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / @lorenzofb : New: Signal is going to store your contacts in the cloud protecting them with a PIN and cybersecurity experts are worried this new feature compromises users' privacy. We break down and explain this debate here. https://www.vice.com/...? @motherboard : The popular encrypted app is now going to store your contacts in the cloud. Experts are worried this compromises users' privacy. https://www.vice.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Signal built its reputation on collecting almost nothing about its users, and this PIN-based contacts backup puts server-stored data back into the picture for the first time since Open Whisper Systems' contact-scanning experiment that promised provable deletion. The feature is part of the broader mainstream push documented earlier in 2020, when Signal added iPad support, stickers, and reactions to widen its appeal beyond the hardcore.
The timing matters because the people reacting loudest are exactly the early adopters who made the app's brand: cybersecurity researchers publicly threatening to leave over a feature meant to make account recovery easier. That audience's trust is also what later drew protesters, journalists, and dissidents during Signal's download surge around the BLM protests.
First-order effects
- Security experts quoted by VICE say the cloud-stored contacts compromise privacy, and some are threatening to stop using Signal — an immediate credibility cost with the exact user base that anchored the app's reputation.
- Signal now holds recoverable user data on its own servers, changing the answer to 'what does Signal know about you?' from essentially nothing to something, for anyone who opts into the PIN feature.
Second-order effects
- As Signal chases mainstream growth, every convenience feature re-litigates the same trade-off with its security community — a tension that resurfaces when staff themselves worry new features will be misused after the WhatsApp-driven influx of new users.
- Competing encrypted messengers can position themselves against the move, marketing zero-server-storage designs to the disaffected expert crowd that Signal risks shedding.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, encrypted messaging consolidates around two models: mainstream apps that accept server-side recovery data for usability, and minimalist ones that treat zero data retention as the product — forcing every entrant to pick a side rather than claim both.
- For high-risk users like the journalists and activists who adopted Signal en masse, trust shifts from a one-time endorsement to something each feature must continuously earn, raising the bar for any privacy-first service adding convenience layers.
The trend: Privacy-first messaging apps are discovering that mainstream growth forces them to trade away the minimal-data purity that made them trusted in the first place.