Signal recently revealed in a blog post the detailed move by U.S. law enforcement agencies to force the platform to reveal the personal information of its users.
According to Signal, the company received a search warrant from the Santa Clara, California police, requesting to receive the name, street address, telephone number, email address, billing information, the date and time of account opening and registration, incoming and outgoing call details, answering machine, video calls, emails, text messages, IP addresses including the date and time for each login, and any data and times at which the user was connected to Signal.
In response to the law enforcement request, Signal provided timestamps indicating that the account was last connected to the platform, and further stated that it does not collect the requested information from users.
To prevent the issue from becoming public, Signal noted that law enforcement authorities issued a nondisclosure order requiring Signal not to disclose that it had obtained the search warrant, a move that Signal struggled with in court for nearly a year.
This and more shows how law enforcement agencies and governments around the world are forcing online platforms to provide information about their users.