Laws enabling government access to encrypted private messaging platforms would make Signal’s Australian operations a “gangrenous foot” that would have to be cut off by shutting down local operations, the non-profit's president has warned.

Ongoing demands from the likes of ASIO – whose director Mike Burgess has been trying for more than five years to get more power to monitor encrypted messages – have maintained friction between the two communities that has yet to be resolved.

Citing the importance of human rights and secure communications as key privacy rights, Signal president Meredith Whittaker told The Australian that “for many people private communication is the difference between life and death.”

Even if it were technically possible to snoop on Signal messages – which it is not, due to the platform’s zero knowledge encryption design – she warned that Australian laws mandating access via engineered ‘back doors’ would risk user security worldwide.

With “millions” of Australians using Signal, Whittaker said withdrawing from the country would “would hurt the people who rely on us”, but added that she would not hesitate because “if you let the gangrene spread, you poison the body.”

Among the users affected by such a move would be the government itself, which – despite police bans on use of the apps – has allowed Signal and its disappearing messages to be used by Home Affairs and other agencies since COVID began.

A recent review of 22 Australian government agencies by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) found widespread use of secure messaging apps even though many lacked appropriate policies for security and transparency.

Individuals grilled over their use of Signal include Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong and Burgess himself, even as he continues to agitate for access to apps he says are go-to platforms for extremists and “aggressive and experienced” spies targeting Australia.

Securing a high-end clientele

Whittaker’s comments come after reports the government – whose Encryption Act stops short of requiring backdoors – has been intensifying pressure on Signal amidst an escalating campaign to strengthen investigation, interrogation and other powers.

The focus on Signal is notable given that it has just 40 million users worldwide – a fraction of WhatsApp’s 2.5 billion, WeChat’s 1.37 billion, and Messenger’s 1.36 billion – and accounts for just 0.85 per cent of the US messaging app market last year.


Signal is used by a tiny but important segment of the population, including government. Photo: Shutterstock

Yet its user base skews towards government executives, journalists, whistleblowers, and other highly security aware individuals attracted to perceptions that it offers even higher security that can’t be compromised by court orders.

Concern about laws compromising that security have grown so much that media outlet The Guardian recently tapped the University of Cambridge to develop an open source tool enabling end-to-end secure messaging for whistleblowers inside its own news app.

Signal’s encryption can’t be brute-forced and there are no back doors for authorities, leading CyberCX executive director Liam O’Shanessy to call Signal, WhatsApp and similar end-to-end encrypted apps “generally as safe as messaging apps can get.”

Yet user error, such as but adding the wrong person to a chat, can still bypass those protections, as US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth found after an “egregious failure” in March.

Hegseth’s mistake – in which a journalist from The Atlantic was able to view detailed plans for a Yemen bombing raid before they happened – exposed Signal to the mainstream and put President Trump into damage control just weeks into his term.

Authorities are chipping away at protections

While some platforms continue to push back against authorities arguing for access on moral or technological grounds, over the past year others have grudgingly acceded to law enforcement’s intensifying demands.

Last year, Telegram – whose 1 billion users include a who’s who of the cybercriminal underground – committed to cooperating with authorities after CEO Pavel Durov was arrested and charged with complicity for the crimes committed using his network.

And in February, a UK government Technical Capability Notice (TCN) ordered Apple – which has long fought demands for access to encrypted user data, to build a backdoor in a move the Electronic Frontiers Foundation called “an emergency for us all.”

A “deeply disappointed” Apple ultimately switched off its end-to-end Advanced Data Protection (ADP) encryption feature for UK users – although reports suggest American authorities are now pressuring the UK government to back down.


Signal president Meredith Whittaker. Photo: Wikipiedia

“It is very serious,” Whittaker said, “because a backdoor in one part of a network that is interconnected across the world undermines the entire network.”

“Robust, technically guaranteed privacy for everyone who uses Signal [is] the reason we exist,” she continued, “but our ability to make good on that commitment for the people of Australia…. does face threats from legislation.”

“We don’t [leave a market] lightly and we would only do that as a last resort – but the stakes could not be higher.”