Signal Without a Phone Number: These Changes Are Coming Now

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Signal Without a Phone Number: These Changes Are Coming Now.

Anyone who wanted to use the Signal messenger until now couldn't avoid one thing: their own mobile phone number. It served as login, identity, and recovery key all in one. That era is now over – at least on one platform.

According to heise online, Signal accounts can now be created without a phone number, though initially only on Android. This removes a core element of the previous identity that has deterred many privacy-conscious users from signing up.

To keep spammers from rushing through the open door, Signal ties this new freedom to a small fee. How high it will be isn't clear from the heise teaser. In parallel, Signal is expanding its backup feature: new backups are meant to make migrating on iPhones simpler – and thus make switching between iOS and Android considerably easier overall.

What does "Signal without a phone number" actually mean?

Anyone who opens Signal today knows the drill: during registration, you're asked for your mobile number, it's confirmed via SMS code, and from then on it becomes part of your identity on the network. It also shows up in your contact list – a design element that bothers many users.

Signal is now loosening this binding – according to heise online, initially for Android. What alternative will replace the number and whether anything changes for existing customers remains unclear from the available report.

Small Fee as Spam Brake

Open registrations are a feast for spammers and bot operators. Signal plans to counter this with a small fee, according to heise online. What exactly the hurdle looks like – a one-time fee per account, tiered, or per message – isn't clear from the teaser.

The principle of coupling anonymity with cost isn't entirely new in the messenger market. Other services take similar approaches to slow down automated mass accounts.

New Backups Ease Platform Switching

The second lever in the update concerns migration between operating systems. According to heise online, new backups make switching easier on iPhones – meaning moving from or to an iPhone.

Anyone who has switched back and forth between Android and iOS in the past usually left parts of their chat history or media behind. The new backup generation is meant to make this easier. What exactly goes into the backup and where it ends up – locally or in the cloud – remains unanswered in the teaser.

What remains open so far

The heise teaser sketches the direction but holds back on technical details. Open questions include: the exact rollout timing, the fee amount, the mechanism that replaces the phone number as an identifier, and the question of whether and when iOS users will get to enjoy numberless signup. As soon as heise online or Signal itself provides more, we'll update this article.

You can find more on messenger apps, encryption, and data protection in our other articles.