this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025
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Does it not give away your identity when you join a Signal group?
Signal defaults to hiding your phone number since the release of user names: https://signal.org/blog/phone-number-privacy-usernames/
But they must still have your phone number and associate it with your username. So it would still be easy for a government organization to force Signal to give up the identities of all people who join a group.
Not worried about my phone number, I'm more worried about my profile.
Your profile, like everything else on Signal, is also end-to-end encrypted. Your name and profile picture do get shared with whoever you chat with, groups or individuals. If you don't want your name and profile picture shared with randos, either don't set them or don't chat with randos.
That's fine if one of those ends isn't a public activism group.
I use Signal to talk to people in real life, both personally and professionally. I don't want to message them from some sort of unidentifiable alias.
That was my point, thank you.
settings > privacy > phone number > who can see my number > nobody
👍
Not worried about my phone number so much as my legal name...
No requirement to have your legal name in Signal. Though, I do wish it was possible to set a different name for group chats though. Happy to use my real name with friends and family, but would prefer an alias for group chats.
Exactly.
Maybe I'm just weird, but basically nothing I do in an online capacity traces back to my IRL identity. (I do maintain a linked in for professional purposes.)
I haven't used the groups, but I know you CAN opt to use usernames now.