Privacy

Signal is launching its first paid feature: the ability to make secure, end-to-end encrypted backups of your media history older than 45 days and of your text message history for $1.99 per month.

“Media requires a lot of storage, and storing and transferring large amounts of data is expensive,” Signal’s VP of engineering, Jim O’Leary, says in a blog post. “As a nonprofit that refuses to collect or sell your data, Signal needs to cover those costs differently than other tech organizations that offer similar products but support themselves by selling ads and monetizing data.”