Discord, one of the world’s largest group chat platforms, has introduced end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for voice and video calls. With this feature, even Discord won’t have access to the content of these conversations, ensuring greater privacy for users.
In recent years, E2EE has transitioned from a niche offering to a standard feature in many popular messaging apps like iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal, and Facebook Messenger. Discord, which initially gained popularity as a platform for gamers, has since expanded its reach to users seeking large, interactive group chat experiences.
With 200 million active users each month, Discord revealed last year its intention to bring end-to-end encryption to the platform’s voice and video calls. Now, the company is officially rolling out the technology, acknowledging the millions of users who rely on Discord for calls at any given moment.
Discord’s staff engineer, Stephen Birarda, shared that the platform will begin migrating voice and video communications in DMs, group DMs, voice channels, and Go Live streams to E2EE. Users will be able to confirm when a call is encrypted and can even verify the identities of other participants.
However, Birarda made it clear that while audio and video calls will be end-to-end encrypted, private messages on Discord will not be. He explained that the platform’s approach to content moderation is a priority for the messaging feature, and messages will continue to follow Discord’s moderation guidelines without E2EE.
Kellyn Slone, a Discord spokesperson, also clarified that the company currently has no plans to extend encryption to other areas, such as direct or group messages. For now, only voice and video communications are covered under this new security measure.
In addition to these changes, Discord is releasing a paper detailing its encryption protocol, which has been reviewed by the cybersecurity firm Trail of Bits. The platform is also making the code open source, allowing the broader community to review and contribute to the development of this security feature.
With these advancements, Discord aims to enhance user privacy while maintaining its commitment to safety and moderation across the platform.
