3 min readNew DelhiMay 20, 2026 01:38 PM IST
Messaging platform, Discord announced that all voice and video calls on it are now protected with end-to-end encryption by default. This is a major privacy focused update for millions of its users worldwide.
The announcement comes after Discord nearly spent three years developing and gradually expanding its encryption system known as the Discord Audio and Video Encryption (DAVE) protocol. According to the company, this was fully completed by March 2026, meaning users no longer need to manually enable encryption during calls .
In simple terms, end-to-end encryption ensures that only participants in a conversation can access the audio or video being shared. This means that Discord itself cannot view or listen to the contents of the call.
Discord’s move also comes at a time when online platforms are facing increased scrutiny over privacy and encrypted communication. In recent years, companies including Instagram and TikTok have adjusted aspects of messaging privacy and moderation systems in response to regulatory pressure and safety concerns, particularly around younger users and harmful content detection.
According to Discord, the rollout has been designed to work seamlessly across multiple devices and platforms, including desktops, smartphones, web browsers and gaming consoles such as Xbox and PlayStation. The company said one of the biggest challenges was maintaining call quality and low latency while implementing encryption across such a diverse ecosystem of devices.
Moreover, Discord claims that users will not notice any meaningful change in the experience. Voice and video performance is expected to remain the same, with encryption running in the background automatically.
However, the update does not apply to all communication on Discord; text messages on the platform remain outside. “We have no current plans to extend E2EE to text messages. Many of the features people use on Discord were built on the assumption that text isn’t end-to-end encrypted, and rebuilding them to work with encryption is a meaningful engineering challenge,” said Mark Smith, Discord’s vice president of core technologies, in a blog post.
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Stage channels, typically used for larger public broadcasts such as live events, AMA or community events, are not included in the encryption rollout.
(This article has been curated by Shivani Menon, who is an intern with The Indian Express)
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