LONDON, March 25 (Reuters) - The president of Signal

defended the messaging app's security on Wednesday after top

Trump administration officials mistakenly included a journalist

in an encrypted chatroom they used to discuss a looming U.S.

attack on Yemen's Houthis.

Signal's Meredith Whittaker did not directly address the

blunder, which Democratic lawmakers have said was a breach of

U.S. national security. But she described the app as the "gold

standard in private comms" in a post on X, which outlined

Signal's security advantages over Meta's WhatsApp messaging app.

"We're open source, nonprofit, and we develop and apply

(end-to-end encryption) and privacy-preserving tech across our

system to protect metadata and message contents," she said.

Signal has been growing in popularity in Europe and the

United States as an alternative to WhatsApp because it collects

very little data about its users.

According to data from Sensor Tower, a market intelligence

firm, U.S. downloads of Signal in the first three months of 2025

were up 16% compared to the prior quarter, and 25% compared to

the same period in 2024.

In a February interview with De Telegraaf, a Dutch

newspaper, Whittaker said Signal was a safer alternative because

WhatsApp collects metadata which can be used to see who messages

whom, and how often.

"When compelled, like all companies that collect the data to

begin with, they turn this important, revealing data over,"

Whittaker said in her post on X.

Meta did not immediately respond to an emailed request for

comment.