Signal is blocked, restricted or age-gated in 7 countries and territories — 7 complete bans in total.
Egyptian ISPs blocked Signal in December 2016; Open Whisper Systems initially bypassed this using domain-fronting. While domain-fronting is no longer viable globally after major cloud providers disabled it, the block remains and users in Egypt must now rely on Signal's built-in TLS proxies or VPNs to connect.
Islamic Republic of Iran blocked Signal in January 2021 after millions of users migrated from WhatsApp over privacy-policy concerns. Authorities had labelled encrypted chat apps as criminal content and ordered them removed from local app stores; Signal reported that Iranian censors began dropping all Signal traffic and later added proxy support so users could reconnect.
Roskomnadzor blocked Signal in August 2024, citing anti-terrorism legislation.