Signal Takes Aim at WhatsApp on Data Privacy with Punchy Taraji P. Henson Film

In a world full of video calls, chats, personally targeted social media ads and manipulative content, knowing who’s listening, watching and stealing your data is becoming an important part of our everyday lives. The pandemic and lockdown have driven more and more of our personal moments online resulting in the biggest data scrape in human history. And yet the importance of personal data privacy continues to be something that everyday users don’t completely understand.

That means that changes to user agreements and users don’t know what they are surrendering. They are told that being tracked is convenient and that their conversations are totally private when in fact they are being monitored and sold. This is why Signal, a cross-platform end-to-end encrypted messaging service that keeps conversations secure, partnered with actor, producer, activist and entrepreneur, Taraji P. Henson, in its first marketing campaign to help explain why personal data privacy is more important now than ever. 

The campaign created with Technology, Humans And Taste [THAT] launched online today on International Data Privacy Day - an international effort to raise awareness and promote privacy and data protection best practices. The hero film, 'Protect Yourself', stars Taraji as she takes us on a tour of her house, highlighting the tracking devices hiding in plain sight and reminding us that we have 'more followers than we think'. With her unmistakeable wit and some real straight talk, Taraji shows us how vulnerable we are and then shows us the only solution. The only truly private place on your phone, Signal.

Now, the tricky part…  in a world and industry that thrives on data, the brief to Technology, Humans And Taste [THAT] was to help expand the Signal’s message globally without the use of any personal data. No targeting, remarketing, or any kind of big data (or small data) products.

“Signal is a nonprofit* and we consider this campaign a social service to raise awareness about data privacy. It’s a huge story to tell and until now, it’s seemed too complicated to resonate with a wide audience,” said Nathan Phillips, co-founder, Technology, Humans And Taste [THAT]. “Our hope is that this film can serve as the opening salvo in an ongoing campaign of clear and simple information, delivered ethically without stealing data and crafted to connect to the hearts and minds of every single human who uses technology to connect.”

“I think to call this work a 'marketing campaign' or even a 'campaign' connotes this large, targeted effort that generally we disagree with. We want to create tools for inspiration and education. We are doing this by partnering with creators to interpret 'privacy' in their own unique ways. We are serving as a service that can extend and amplify those messages to the millions of people that have raised their hands with questions around what data privacy really means and  how they can exist online on their own terms,” said Jun Harada, head of growth and communication, Signal.