Signal, which started in 2014 and attracted privacy-minded users from Silicon Valley, has grown into a mainstay messaging app. That awareness, she added, has led people to “make choices that reject that business model and work to preserve their privacy.” The switch from text messaging to secure apps like Signal is part of “a growing public awareness over the past half-decade of the harms and reality of the Big Tech surveillance business model,” Ms.

The app has been downloaded more than 100 million times from the Google Play store, and it ranks 15th among social networking apps on Apple’s App Store. Signal, which is committed to its users’ privacy, does not know how many people use the app, although the number appears to be growing. Whittaker will guide policy and strategy for the messaging app and work to expand Signal’s business. Signal, the encrypted messaging app, has tapped Meredith Whittaker, a former adviser to the Federal Trade Commission chair and an artificial intelligence expert who protested Google’s use of the technology for military projects, as its president.

Signal private messenger owner