Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs
- ID
- 24145
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 14 Sep 2026, 5:47 AM
- Fetched
- 16 Sep 2026, 3:51 AM
- Provider
- Hacker News
- Category
- dev-community
- Original URL
- https://community.signalusers.org/t/registration-without-a-phone-number/2222?page=10
- Source URL
- https://hnrss.org/best
Summary
- Score
- 6.0
- Created
- 16 Sep 2026, 4:56 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersai_agent_users
What happened
Signal announced that registration without a phone number will use zero-knowledge proofs, addressing a long-standing feature request dating back to March 2018 with 27.9k views and 503 likes on their community forum. The forum thread reached 212 replies as of August 2026, indicating sustained community demand for phone-number-free registration.
Why it matters
If you build messaging or auth flows that currently require phone numbers, Signal's ZK-proof approach is worth studying as a privacy-preserving pattern for decoupling identity verification from phone numbers. Malaysian builders handling sensitive communications (legal, healthcare, activism) should watch how Signal implements this, as it could shift user expectations around phone-number-free registration in consumer apps.
Discussion angle
How ZK proofs could be applied beyond messaging — e.g., verifying a user belongs to a Malaysian bank or telco customer base without exposing their phone number or NRIC to the relying service.