Encrypted Messaging App Signal Sees Increase in Downloads After Election

It has yet to be seen how internet privacy and other privacy will change, if at all, under president-elect Donald Trump. But since Election Day, encrypted messaging app Signal has seen an increase in downloads, Varietyreported. Last month it was reported that Apple gave users’ iMessage information to police.

Signal has end-to-end encrypted messaging and doesn't store information such as when or who someone texts or calls. According to analyst firm App Annie, on election day Signal was ranked the 98th most downloaded app on the U.S. app store in the social networking category, but by Thursday it had jumped to 34th. Signal similarly saw an increase in downloads over on the Google Play store, where it went from being ranked 65th on Election Day to 33rd on Thursday. In the last two and a half months, Signal’s been downloaded over 800,000 times, with a fourth of those downloads being in the U.S. Signal has previously been recommended by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

App Annie’s director of market insights Amir Ghodrati said, “We’re seeing in general an uptick of users being more mindful of their digital footprint and mobile security with apps like Signal and the various VPN apps that exist on the market like Hotspot Shield and Opera VPN. The one thing to keep in mind is that for users to receive the maximum benefit of Signal, their contacts have to be leveraging the app as well.”

Users are thinking more about their security, but how can they not in a year where Yahoo was discovered to have searched users emails for the NSA and the Democratic National Committee got hacked?