Skype Is Finally Getting End-To-End Encryption

Some of the most popular and widely used messaging services like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger have adopted end-to-end encryption over the past few years. Skype, a worthy competitor to those services, has been lacking in this department. That’s finally changing today. Skype is now adding support for end-to-end encrypted messaging with Signal’s help. It has teamed up with Signal to add a Private Conversations feature in Skype. The feature is powered by the Signal Protocol.

Skype Private Conversations give users enhanced security with end-to-end encryption. This is an additional layer of security for conversations and is only available for one-on-one chats. The feature is not supported in group chats.

Skype users can start a Private Conversation by tapping on the + icon followed by New Private Conversation. An invite will be sent to the contact that the user wants to have a Private Conversation with.

The invitation needs to be accepted within 7 days or it will expire. If the Private Conversation was started on one device and the user wants to more it to another device, they will need to resend the invitation to the contact using that other device.

Preview messages from Private Conversations don’t show in Chats or notifications. Moreover, users can’t edit a message or forward a file. They can only send emoticons, files, and audio messages from the chat window.

Microsoft has released this feature in preview for Skype Insiders only at this point in time. It may be a while before this feature is released to all users.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: end-to-end encryption, Skype