Discord Introduces End-to-End Encryption for Voice and Video Calls
On Tuesday, Discord announced it would be rolling out a major security upgrade in the form of end-to-end encryption for its voice and video calls. That means those conversations are now completely private-even from Discord itself-and further bolsters user privacy on the platform, home to 200 million monthly users. The move brings Discord in line with a raft of other major chat apps-iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal, and Facebook Messenger-all of which have rolled out E2EE in recent years.
What began initially as a facility for group chatting among gamers expanded into a facility used by millions of users, from casual conversations to official meetings. Given the fact that the audio calls on this platform also predominantly occur for gaming, this rollout of E2EE is a big enhancement in the protection of user communications.
What is Covered by E2EE?
According to Discord staff software engineer Stephen Birarda, the rollout includes:
- Voice and video calls in Direct Messages (DMs)
- Group DMs
- Voice channels
- Go Live streams
Users will be able to confirm when a call is end-to-end encrypted and verify other members in the conversation.
Limitations: Messages Are Not Encrypted
However, messages on Discord are not going to be encrypted; that is, text-based communications will not have end-to-end encryption. The company has decided to continue with its content moderation policy for text-which infers messages will still be up for review. “No further plans at this time” was the explanation provided by Kellyn Slone, a spokesperson for Discord, when referring to extending encryption to messages or group chats.
Open Source Encryption Protocol
Discord also intends to publish a whitepaper on its encryption protocol, vetted by cybersecurity consulting firm Trail of Bits. The company will also make this technology’s code open-source, meaning it will be available to review and contribute to by the security community.
In this upgrade, Discord enters that class of services taking users’ privacy seriously, thus more attractive to those users valuing security in communications.
