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Built from public records and checked 2026-10-22. Not an audit of Signal. How scores are made · spotted a mistake? Tell us.
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Apple App Store apps

Signal

Nonprofit-run encrypted messenger · Score 93/100 · Last checked 2026-10-22

The short version

Strong record on message privacy. Registration still requires a phone number.

Built from: public records, checked 2026-10-22.

Score breakdown

Security record94
Documented incidents and safeguards (public record, not a technical test)
Data jurisdiction88
Which laws and governments can reach your data
Ownership transparency96
How plainly the owner can be traced
Third-party exposure92
Documented analytics, advertising and attribution partners

Who owns it

Signal→Signal Messenger, LLC→Signal Technology Foundation

Parent based in: 🇺🇸 United States

Laws that can apply: US CLOUD Act, FISA 702

Where your data can go

WhoCountryWhy they are involved
Amazon Web Services🇺🇸 United States Cloud infrastructure (confirmed by Signal's president after the October 2025 outage, per press)

Jurisdictions touched: 🇺🇸 United States

What the public record says

lowDepends on AWS; disrupted by a large outage in October 2025

A major AWS outage disrupted Signal for more than an hour, according to press reports. Content stays encrypted. Source

lowA phone number is needed to register

Signal's privacy policy describes registration codes sent by SMS or call, so accounts are tied to a phone number. Source

good to knowCannot hand over message content, by design

Signal's legal-requests page lists government demands since 2016 and says it can supply little more than account-creation and last-connection times. Source

good to knowProtocol analysed in peer-reviewed research

Academic researchers formally analysed the Signal protocol's key agreement and Double Ratchet and reported no major design flaws. Not a vendor-commissioned audit. Source

Sources

Ownership, locations and data partners come from the company's own pages and filings where they exist. Last checked 2026-10-22.