Signal boss warns app will exit Australia if forced to hand over users’ encrypted messages

It's Canberra’s favourite messaging app, but Signal boss Meredith Whittaker warns she will withdraw the service from Australia if it's forced to hand over user data to police.

Signal president Meredith Whittaker says laws forcing Signal to create a backdoor in its system to access users’ encrypted messages would undermine its privacy guarantees and force it to consider ‘taking a drastic move, like leaving the market’. Picture: Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP

Signal president Meredith Whittaker is prepared to withdraw the privacy-focused messaging app from Australia — saying she hopes it doesn’t become a “gangrenous foot” by poisoning its entire platform by forcing it to hand over its users’ encrypted data to authorities.

Ms Whittaker says Signal would take the “drastic step” of leaving any market where a government compelled it to create a “backdoor” to access its data, saying it would create a vulnerability that hackers and authoritative regimes could exploit, undermining Signals’ “reason for existing”.

Pressure has been mounting on Signal and other secure messaging platforms. ASIO director general Mike Burgess has urged tech companies to unlock encrypted messages to assist terrorism and national security investigations, saying offshore extremists use such platforms to communicate.

But Ms Whittaker argues it is a slippery slope that threatens to erode fundamental human rights, highlighting the plight of another Burgess – Jessica Burgess of Nebraska in the US.

Ms Burgess was sentenced to two years’ jail in 2023 for helping her 17-year-old daughter have an illegal abortion. Facebook direct messages formed a key part of the prosecution’s evidence.

“She helped her daughter obtain and deal with the aftermath of abortion care … after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling allowed Nebraska to criminalise access to reproductive care,” Ms Whittaker said.

“And why was she convicted? Because Meta turned over her Facebook DMs that were used as key evidence.”

ASIO director general Mike Burgess. Picture: Martin Ollman

In a wide-ranging interview with this masthead, Ms Whittaker warned of the encroachment of governments on the privacy of citizens, as well as big tech stockpiling personal data and their “reckless” use of artificial intelligence on mobile phones and laptops.

Signal, which operates as a not-for-profit and is funded largely by donations and grants, has surged in popularity this year after The Atlantic published details of a group chat in which US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth shared attack plans with a group that included key members of the Trump administration.

The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief was added to the chat, which revealed attack plans against the Iran-aligned Houthi rebel group, highlighting how much the app has become trusted among Washington’s elite.

It competes with Meta’s WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage and holds its own with an annual budget of about $US50m. Its appeal is it collects virtually no user data and makes it difficult to discover others on Signal.

“You could come to my house, put a gun to my head, saying, ‘give me the data’. I could not give you the data. You would have to shoot because I don’t have it. I don’t have access to it,” Ms Whittaker said.

“Our commitment to end-to-end encryption, maintaining robust, technically guaranteed privacy for everyone who uses Signal never wavers. That’s the reason we exist.

“Our ability to make good on that commitment, for the people of Australia who depend on our services – often for very high stakes communication where there is real risk involved – does face threats from legislation.”

Ms Whittaker says such laws that would force Signal to create backdoor in its system to access users’ encrypted messages would undermine its privacy guarantees and force it to consider ‘taking a drastic move, like leaving the market’.

“Let’s hope Australia doesn’t become a gangrenous foot. Ultimately, we would hurt the people who rely on us if we leave a market – we don’t do that lightly. There are hundreds of thousands, millions, of people in Australia who rely on Signal.

“So we would only do that (leave) as a last resort. But again, we must do it because if you let the gangrene spread, you poison the body.”

The problem with a backdoor, Ms Whittaker said, was communication networks can’t be confined within one jurisdiction.

“If you undermine it in Australia – the human rights workers, the journalists, anyone using Signal in Australia – it suddenly creates a weakness for anyone else they are talking to. So if you have a backdoor in Australia, anyone who talks to somebody in Australia is also at risk of that backdoor being exploited and the privacy of their communications being undermined.

“It is very serious, because a back door in one part of a network that is interconnected across the world undermines the entire network that becomes the vector through which the privacy of people’s communications can be attacked.

“And for many people, private communication is the difference between life and death. A regime that has power over you and can see what you’re talking about – can see what you’re co-ordinating with your fellow dissidents, can see materials that you are planning to blow the whistle about, the stakes could not be higher.”

But in a press conference with Anthony Albanese last year, Mr Burgess and Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw said technology is “not above the rule of law” and accused social media giants of refusing to “snuff out” extremist poison.

Tony Burke, Anthony Albanese, AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw, Director-General of Security of Australia Mike Burgess and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus hold a press conference where they warned big tech about failing to ‘snuff out’ extremists. Picture: Martin Ollman

In February, the British government intensified its fight with big tech, ordering Apple to build a backdoor that would allow authorities to read the private encrypted data of any iPhone user. The move forced Apple to withdraw its advanced data protection service – which ensures only users can access files such as photos and documents that are encrypted on Apple’s iCloud storage – from the UK, saying it was “gravely disappointed” with the British government’s decision.

“When you look over the dynamics of power throughout history, centralised power constitutes itself in part through information asymmetry and the desire to have access to all of the data seems to be in some sense hardwired into various government entities and agencies,” Ms Whittaker said.

“At the same time, we have an AI industry that is hungry for data that requires more and more data to built on the backs of a business model of collecting as much personal and public data as possible.”

Ms Whittaker is concerned about the use of AI on smartphones and laptops – even if models are processed on device.

Samsung and rival Apple – which together dominate the global smartphone market with a combined share of almost 40 per cent – are betting on AI to breathe new life into mobile phones, which are becoming harder to sell. The technology has given people access to personal assistants in their pockets, with AI able to summarise text messages, emails and edit pictures and videos, as well as provide nudges to improve health and wellbeing throughout the day.

But Ms Whittaker said the deployment of AI across various apps and services had been “rushed” and “reckless”.

She highlighted Microsoft Recall, a feature that was unveiled last year when the tech giant launched its new range of Copilot+ PCs and aimed to solve a common problem with using computers – how to find a particular file or document.

It worked by taking regular screenshots so a user could later search via verbal prompt for a document or file they were working rather than manually comb through folders. But Microsoft later pulled Recall, following a backlash over data collection processes. It is now available as an optional feature.

Ms Whittaker said running such AI models on device mitigated the risk but the “risk was still there”.

“On device, AI doesn’t, doesn’t totally solve these issues in the sense that that AI still needs to access data, that data still needs to be made available to the AI, and the way that these agents are being designed is giving them very, very pervasive permissions across applications and services at a very low level on your device.

“Ultimately, we’re talking about the ability to sustain fundamental human rights in the face of industrial and government pressure that has metastasised surveillance across our core infrastructures over the last few decades.”

Ms Whittaker will speak at SXSW Sydney, which will be held from October 13–19.