Signal will leave the EU if a new European proposal would force Signal to weaken encryption. That message was reiterated by Signal’s President Meredith Whittaker.
“If we were faced with the choice of undermining the integrity of our encryption and data protection guarantees or leaving Europe, we would unfortunately make the decision to leave the market,” Signal President Meredith Whittaker told German media.
The warning about a possible Signal exit from the European Union does not come out of the blue. Signal already warned two years ago about potentially leaving the EU.
EU wants to scan all your private messages
The European Union is currently working on laws that would allow all your private messages to be scanned for criminal and illegal content, such as child sexual abuse material. Providers of apps and platforms like Signal and WhatsApp would then be required to scan all your messages, photos, videos, and files for potential child abuse material.
Many experts, including those in cybersecurity, law, and even child protection, have long warned about the dangers of chat control. Despite the consensus among cybersecurity experts, politicians continue to think they know better and keep proposing similar laws.
Signal President Meredith Whittaker has once again called on the EU to reject such proposals: encryption is for everyone, or it is broken for everyone. “You cannot create a backdoor that only lets the ‘good guys’ in, and scanning content prior to encryption still breaks the privacy assurances guaranteed by end-to-end encryption” says Meredith Whittaker.
New chat control proposal in European Council this month
On 13 and 14 October 2025, the European Council for Justice and Home Affairs will discuss the new proposal. How the member states will position themselves is still unclear. Although several countries are already opposed, it remains to be seen what the EU will ultimately decide.
Signal, for its part, will do everything it can to ensure that everyone continues to have access to Signal—and therefore to privacy and freedom of expression. As Meredith Whittaker wrote on X last year: “We will stay to the end. We stand with the people in Europe & their right to privacy, whatever the Commission does”.
To be clear–we will stay to the end. We stand with the people in Europe & their right to privacy, whatever the Commission does
— Meredith Whittaker (@mer__edith) May 31, 2024
But we won't comply with any mandate to undermine our privacy guarantees. And noncompliance would result in our being barred from the market.
