Discord has certainly encountered its fair share of controversies over the years. Just this year, a significant incident came to light, revealing that data from approximately 600 million Discord users was leaked after an individual scraped group chats across thousands of servers. Compounding this issue, earlier this month, Discord introduced a new feature that many users perceived as invasive.
However, there is a glimmer of good news on the horizon: the gaming-centric communication platform is now in the process of rolling out end-to-end encryption for audio and video calls.
In their announcement, Discord introduced the DAVE protocol—an acronym for Discord’s Audio and Video End-to-End Encryption. This protocol will be applied across all forms of audio and video calls, including those in direct messages, group chats, voice channels, and Go Live streams.
So, what does this mean for users? Essentially, call data will be encrypted on your device before it is transmitted, ensuring that only the intended recipients can decrypt it. The keys required for decryption will only be known by the participants in the call, meaning that not even Discord will have access to this sensitive information. The company asserts that this encryption process will not compromise call quality.
For those interested in a more detailed understanding of how this encryption works, Discord has provided an in-depth breakdown in their announcement, along with a whitepaper discussing the DAVE protocol and its associated open-source library.
It’s important to note that this encryption only applies to audio and video calls; text messages will remain unencrypted to facilitate content moderation efforts.
Currently, the DAVE update is available on Discord’s desktop and mobile apps, with plans to roll out to other platforms in 2025. This significant update positions Discord more in line with other communication platforms, such as WhatsApp and Signal, which have been utilizing end-to-end encryption for several years.
