‘Not Just Nerds, Everyone's Talking About Privacy Now'

Brian Acton co-founded WhatsApp, which he sold to Facebook in 2014 for $16 billion. Three years later, he left the social media company following differences with founder Mark Zuckerberg on monetisation of WhatsApp. In 2018, Acton co-founded Signal Foundation, which houses the messaging platform under the same name. Following WhatsApp’s recent announcement of changes in its privacy policies, Signal has seen an unprecedented spike in downloads by Android and Apple users across the world. It now leads the free app charts in nearly 60 countries, with India seeing the most downloads. Acton spoke to TOI's Digbijay Mishra & Reeba Zachariah over video about the impact of the past few extraordinary days. Excerpts from the conversation:

- Digbijay Mishra & Reeba Zachariah

There was a rush to join Signal after WhatsApp updated its data sharing policy. But now that WhatsApp has issued clarifications, do you see any impact on migration?

There is going to be continued confusion around the privacy policy. It was complicated to read in the first place. I do not know how the clarifications will percolate into discussions on the topic. People have been talking and asking questions like should I switch to Signal. These discussions will continue because the policy is still not clear.

We, meanwhile, are just excited to explain to the world that Signal has very simple terms of service and privacy policy. We’re here to protect your privacy, so you don’t have to worry. We have very little data, and whatever data we have is strongly encrypted, even we cannot read it. We encrypt all messages, the recipients, the groups and profile photos.

How many users installed Signal globally since January 6, when WhatsApp updated its terms?