Discord now provides end-to-end encryption by default for all voice and video calls, with stage channels excluded from encryption, marking a major privacy upgrade for hundreds of millions of users.

E2EE covers direct messages, group DMs, voice channels, and Go Live streams across desktop, mobile, web, consoles, and SDKs, with the rollout completed and no user action required.

The encryption framework, known as DAVE, was introduced in 2024, developed with Trail of Bits, and has since been extended to all platforms, including a March 2026 completion across all devices.

The feature went live in 2024 and reached every user on a recent rollout Monday, requiring no user-side changes.

DAVE is open-source and hosted on GitHub, inviting independent review of the encryption implementation and whitepaper.

Discord’s whitepaper and client libraries for DAVE are publicly available on GitHub for scrutiny and transparency.

Discord acknowledges ongoing challenges with platform-wide compatibility and low-latency performance during joins/leaves, while underscoring the importance of privacy across communications.

The E2EE effort moved from an experimental phase in 2023 to a standard rollout, with DAVE as the named protocol.

The move reflects a broader industry trend, as some platforms shift toward stronger privacy protections, while others have rolled back encrypted messaging features.

The DAVE protocol is an extended version that adds WebRTC transforms, Messaging Layer Security, and ephemeral identity keys to reduce latency and boost privacy.

DAVE uses per-sender encryption for each audio/video frame via WebRTC and relies on MLS for group key exchanges, ensuring only participants can decrypt content.

Discord serves hundreds of millions of registered users and over 200 million monthly active users, underscoring the scale of this privacy upgrade.