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Conversations over voice and video chat within Discord are now more secure than ever, thanks to new default end-to-end encryption (E2EE) tools.
The company first began experimenting with E2EE for voice and video in August 2023, and it started rolling out in March 2026 using DAVE, its open, audited end-to-end encryption protocol for audio and video. That requires a lot of coordination between platforms; as Discord explains, a single call could include "someone on a laptop, someone on their phone, someone on a PlayStation, someone on an Xbox, and someone in a web browser."
Discord requires all these clients to support DAVE before joining a call, and as of this week, it's "now in the process of removing the client code that supports unencrypted fallback. After that is done, it will not be possible to fall back to unencrypted connections," Discord’s head of engineering, Mark Smith, explains in a blog post.
"DAVE is likely one of the internet’s most platform-diverse E2EE voice and video implementations," he adds.
Discord users don’t need to make any changes to use encryption, as it's now standard across all voice and video calls, except Stage channels, which are Discord's tool for large events or conversations where you want multiple people to speak directly to an audience. Many communities use it for townhalls, announcements, or ask-me-anything-like online events.
Efforts to strengthen Discord's privacy protections are “ongoing" and "not a one-time project,” Smith says. However, the platform has "no current plans to extend E2EE to text messages. Many of the features people use on Discord were built on the assumption that text isn't end-to-end encrypted, and rebuilding them to work with encryption is a meaningful engineering challenge."
Discord recently revamped its Nitro Rewards program to include Xbox Game Pass as a benefit, along with discounts on popular Logitech G and SteelSeries gadgets. In February, the service delayed plans for global age verification tools amid major user backlash.