Signal Foundation—Signal's response to federal grand jury subpoena demonstrated minimal data retention - only account creation date and last connection date
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.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corporate Transparency | +toward | secondary | +0.50 |
| Encryption & Privacy | +toward | secondary | +0.50 |
| User Privacy | +toward | primary | +1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | +0.590 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (high ×1.5) × confidence (0.59)
Evidence (1 signal)
Signal published grand jury subpoena response showing only two data points available for disclosure
Signal published its response to a federal grand jury subpoena from the Central District of California, showing it could only provide Unix timestamps for account creation and last connection. No message content, contacts, groups, or profile data was available.