Discord introduces end-to-end encryption for voice and video calls

Discord on Tuesday released DAVE, an end-to-end encryption protocol for audio and video calls. It will provide encryption for private messages (DMs), group DMs, voice channels, and Go Live streams to its approximately 200 million monthly users. The social media platform said users will be able to check when end-to-end encryption is in effect and verify other members. This development builds on experiments Discord launched last year on new encryption protocols and other audio and video calling technologies.

How end-to-end encryption works on Discord

Discord announced in a blog post that its new Dave protocol follows five key goals: privacy, open and effective protocols, broad platform support, transparency, and scalability. The company said that no outsider, including Discord itself, can access the content of ongoing audio and video conversations. Every time a user leaves a call, the media encryption key is changed and the previous key cannot be decrypted.

The protocol leverages industry-standard subprotocols and encryption algorithms and is already supported by Discord mobile and desktop clients. Support for the rest of the clients will be available next year. When a user starts a voice or video call, an out-of-band verification code comparison is performed to ensure that the other participant in the call is legitimate.

Users can choose to have a persistent identity key pair on every device they use Discord. This allows others to store their persistent verification without having to repeat the process each time. However, every user must support the end-to-end encryption protocol for it to work. If there are unsupported members present, the call will move to transport-only encryption.

Despite the encryption, Discord says low-latency voice and video will not be affected. After DAVE is launched, it will automatically migrate users to its new protocol version without any disruption. The protocol will become the default for voice and video in DMs, group DMs, voice channels, and Go Live streams.

In addition to launching the DAVE protocol, Discord also released its whitepaper and the library that its clients use to implement the protocol.