We will not conduct a KYC for our users: Signal President Meredith Whittaker

NEW DELHI When it comes to traceability and finding the originator of a viral message on an end-to-end encrypted messaging platform, Signal’s Meredith Whittaker is clear — it is not possible. And for Signal, since it does not have “viral forwarding functions”, the context is different from WhatsApp.

And even if the new Telecommunications Bill goes ahead with a mandatory KYC requirement for users on OTT platforms such as Signal and WhatsApp, Signal will not conduct a KYC of its users. “It is not possible for us to do that. And part of our commitment to privacy is that we treat ourselves like a third party and as Signal, try to have as little data as possible [of our users] because we recognise that is the only way to [have a privacy preserving platform],” she said.

Comparing KYC to age verification and other kind of authentication technologies, Whittaker said that such technologies build “surveillance regimes” that make it “very easy to track what everyone does online and offline” and “eliminate anonymity and privacy from it”.

“I don’t love the term ‘digital world’ because the digital rebounds powerfully into our everyday lives and shapes our opportunities and our access to resources,” she said.

When it comes to any conversation about end-to-end encryption, it is impossible to ignore WhatsApp, the most popular E2E encrypted messaging platform in the world. WhatsApp runs on the Signal protocol, which is open sourced.

But there are two crucial differences — Signal is run by a not-for-profit foundation while WhatsApp is owned by Meta. Signal does not collect any metadata of users while WhatsApp, in response to law enforcement requests, shares user metadata with them.

“We are not going to collect metadata and metadata is not an afterthought. It isn’t any less invasive nor does it matter less than the data itself,” she said. “Metadata is extraordinarily powerful. It is how you could identify networks of human rights activists, networks of queer youth — it will get you enough information.”

In a debate in 2014, General Michael Hayden, the former director of the CIA and NSA, had said, “We kill people based on metadata.”

Asked what she thought of WhatsApp’s new feature — Channels — which are not end-to-end encrypted, Whittaker said calling them private channels is quite misleading and agreed that it eroded WhatsApp’s credibility as a private and secure platform. “It is a fundamental tension of trying to build privately, within a surveillance company, whose incentives are ultimately driven by monetising surveillance whether that be by building AI models or by selling demographic targeting to advertisers,” she said.

A big issue with WhatsApp’s Channels is that given the interpersonal nature of WhatsApp as an app, Channels lend a sense of intimacy and interpersonal communication to what are essentially one-way broadcast systems.

Signal is not geared towards virality, broadcasting or mass dissemination. There is enough friction in the process to prevent spamming of thousands of users in one go, something that WhatsApp had to grapple with a few months ago.

“Nothing we do is not private or secure. And I want to clarify the term ‘balance’ because when you hear ‘balance’ between scanning and encryption, you realise that they cannot be balanced because it is a choice. And we always choose privacy and security. And then we try to extend those to features that fit within our model of being an interpersonal communication app, not a broadcast media platform,” she said.

But then there are privacy preserving features like disappearing messages that can be misused by public officials to evade accountability and transparency. For instance, this issue is being litigated in the UK where a not-for-profit organisation, the Citizens, has argued that the use of disappearing messages by public officials violates the British law on public records and freedom of information.

“The rot at the centre of political power structures is not going to be solved by modifying apps, or removing the possibility for digital discretion around how conversations are archived. If governments are truly committed to accountability and transparency, they can always modify Signal protocol to have a government-only version that has disappearing messages disabled for officials,” Whittaker said. “The problem is not technological but a socio-political one.”

WhatsApp did not respond to requests for a comment on Whittaker’s statements.

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