Signal Foundation

In March 2025, senior Trump administration officials including the National Security Advisor used Signal to discuss classified military strike plans against Yemen's Houthis, and inadvertently added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to the group. While this demonstrated trust in Signal's encryption, it highlighted that the app was not approved for classified communications.

In 2023, Signal Foundation president Meredith Whittaker publicly stated Signal would leave the UK market rather than comply with the Online Safety Bill's provisions that could require breaking end-to-end encryption. The UK government ultimately backed down from requiring backdoors.

In 2021, Signal received a federal grand jury subpoena from the Central District of California. Signal's court filing showed it could only provide two pieces of information: account creation timestamp and last connection date. No message content, contacts, groups, or profile information was available, validating their privacy-first architecture.

In April 2021, Signal integrated MobileCoin (MOB) cryptocurrency for payments within the app. Critics noted that Signal CEO Moxie Marlinspike was an early advisor to MobileCoin and was paid in MOB tokens, creating a potential conflict of interest. The MOB token price surged after the announcement. Privacy advocates questioned adding a privacy-coin to a messaging app.

Signal Foundation created the Signal Protocol (formerly TextSecure Protocol), which became the gold standard for encrypted messaging. The protocol was adopted by WhatsApp (2B+ users), Facebook Messenger, Skype, and Google Messages. Signal open-sourced the protocol and its client applications.