Signal Says It Will Exit India Rather Than Compromise Its Encryption from the principles-matter dept Signal ensures its users’ security and privacy by encrypting their messages and refusing to collect a bunch of data governments or malicious hackers might find useful or interesting.An FBI official once compared Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike to a KKK member, which gives you some idea how entities, whose demands for data have been thwarted by Signal’s refusal to collect/store this data, feel about the ultra-secure messaging platform.That move resulted in WhatsApp suing the Indian government over the 2021 law, claiming the mandate — which would require WhatsApp to collect and retain all message metadata in perpetuity (since it obviously can’t know in advance what information the government will come looking for) — violates India’s own privacy laws.In a wide-ranging interview with Nilay Patel for The Verge, Signal president Meredith Whittaker made it clear the company will exit India (and give up access to a market with more than a billion potential users) if the Indian government heads in the direction of backdoors or compelled decryption.If Signal doesn’t keep its privacy promises, then there is no real point for us to exist as a nonprofit whose sole mission is to provide a safe, private, pleasant place for messaging and communication in a world where those are vanishingly few and far between."