Does Signal Work Without Providing Contacts?

Signal is a secured app that is used as the best alternative to WhatsApp. It mainly focuses on privacy and provides internet-based chat services to users. If you want to switch to Signal from another app, you should know why it accesses the phone’s contacts after the sign-up process. Read this post to know why Signal wants access to contacts.
Signal and your contacts

Like most chat applications, Signal also needs mobile numbers. Your phone number helps Signal to know about you. You receive messages through the phone number. If you want to send a message to someone, the message is sent using your number. It clearly means that Signal requires users phone number to facilitates chat services. It considers your phone number as its address. If you don’t want to register your primary number you can use a different one.
 


In addition to it, Signal also accesses your contact numbers saved on your smartphones to connect you with the other Signal users. When you sign up, it asks your permission to access your contacts. If it finds anyone from your contacts using the same services, you get immediately connected with that person. When you click on New Message, you find the individuals available in your contact list on Signal.
 
Does Signal notify someone when signing up?

As you get started with Signal by signing up and if someone has saved you in their contacts, they receive a notification or message like you are using Signal. Remember that Signal doesn’t send this message. Sometimes, this message is sent without providing access to the contacts. It notifies the people to use chat services instead of text messaging.

In simple terms, if a person has saved your phone number in their contacts, they see a message that you have joined Signal and they can connect with you. Signal doesn’t contact someone to notify about you that you are using it.

Can Signal take your contacts to its servers?

Many chatting apps use users’ contacts to share with their servers to find other people on that network. It seems good to ask to connect you with more people. But the question is that does Signal store users’ contacts to its servers? The clear answer is no. Yes, your contacts aren’t stored on Signal forever. It only uses hashed numbers to find other people.
 
What if you don’t grant access to contact information?

The good thing with Signal is that it can work without accessing your contact data. If you don’t want to provide contacts’ access, its ok. Signal still works using different methods with some inconveniences. The first inconvenience you will face is, it doesn’t let you know who others are using it from your contacts unless others find you. Or you will have to manually add someone. You can also use the contact discovery feature on Signal for better results.
 
Signal performs better using contacts

After all, you can get the ultimate result from it after providing access to contacts. If you think Signal can do wrong with your contacts after knowing its privacy policy then you can quit using it or you can go through another method to use it without enabling access to contact information. It all depends on you how you want to use it.

Source: Does Signal Work Without Providing Contacts?

Comments

Popular Posts