SANTA CLARA, CA – Signal Messenger LLC, the company running the privacy focused Signal messaging app, posted an update earlier this month on the two search warrants received by the company from Santa Clara County, asking for data on nine phone numbers.
According to documents posted by Signal, a January 15, 2023 search warrant by the Superior Court of the State of California in Santa Clara County, was seeking “account records and subscriber information between July 29, 2014, and January 13, 2023, defined as Unix timestamps for when each account was created and the date each account last connected to Signal” for seven phone numbers that were redacted in the documents.
An additional search warrant dated February 5, 2023 was seeking the same information for two additional numbers. In total, the court was seeking information on nine phone numbers.
After conducting a search, Signal reported that they only possessed records for three of the nine phone numbers. The records were limited to dates of registration and most recent logins.
In a post made by the app on August 8, Signal stated that “Because everything in Signal is end-to-end encrypted by default, the broad set of personal information that is typically easy to retrieve in other apps simply doesn’t exist on Signal’s servers.”
They went on to say that
Signal doesn’t have access to your messages; your calls; your chat list; your files and attachments; your stories; your groups; your contacts; your stickers; your profile name or avatar; your reactions; or even the animated GIFs you search for – and it’s impossible to turn over any data that we never had access to in the first place.
This is not the first time Signal received a search warrant from Santa Clara county. In 2021, Signal responded to a search warrant from Santa Clara county, asking for:
a) Billing records including method of payment.
b) Date of when the account was opened/registered, and any other phone numbers associated with the account.
c) All names, physical addresses, and email addresses associated with the account.
d) Outbound and Inbound call detail records including length of call, date, time, numbers dialed, or numbers received and any “key” or information that enables the investigator to interpret the data provided.
e) Stored communications including voice mail, video calls, email and text messages.
f) IP addresses along with dates and times for each login for login.
g) All dates and times of the user connectivity to the Signal service.
Responding to this warrant, Signal provided the only data they possessed on the user: the account creation date and the last connection date.
Signal concluded their post by reaffirming their position on privacy and thanking Brett Max Kaufman and Jennifer Granick at the ACLU for their council.
