Wikidata:Property proposal/Signal number

Signal number[edit]

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Authority control

Not done

Description	phone number for this person or organization used by the Signal app for secure communications
Represents	Signal (Q19718090)
Data type	External identifier
Domain	property
Allowed values	\d{10}
Example 1	Ken Klippenstein (Q97940221) → tel:2025101268
Example 2	Micah Lee (Q15834986) → tel:4159420460
Example 3	Muck Rack (Q57500196) → tel:2125001883
Source	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)
Planned use	Use it on Ken Klippenstein (Q97940221)
See also	Telegram username (P3789): this item's username, channel or group on Telegram phone number (P1329): telephone number in standard format (RFC3966), without 'tel:' prefix fax number (P2900): telephone number of a facsimile line TDD number (P8659): TDD number (textphone/teletype for deaf people) in standard format (RFC3966), without 'tel:' prefix Wikidata:Property proposal/WhatsApp number

Motivation[edit]

Ken Klippenstein offers up his Signal number for submitting tips and leaks, so I wanted to add it to his Wikidata item somehow. QRep2020 (talk) 06:26, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

edit: The larger motivation here is that we should take advantage of the Wikidata knowledge graph to propagate the means of interacting with journalists, activists, etc. in a safe, end-to-end encrypted fashion. The graph already lists, for instance, the NY Times, yet it does not state how to contact the paper if one wishes to do so securely and secretively. Someone like Ken Klippenstein is urging whistleblowers and the like to reach out to him if they have information the public ought to know and so I think adding a property for editors to use to facilitate such efforts is a small price to pay for a positive social impact at large. QRep2020 (talk) 01:55, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

Comment You should link the examples to Wikidata items that you propose they are for. See other property proposals for how to do this. ArthurPSmith (talk) 17:04, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment @ArthurPSmith, QRep2020: I've fixed some things in the proposal. Also, I think the right datatype is URI, not external identifier. --Tinker Bell ★ ♥ 01:37, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment I've read some articles that suggested a person could get a Signal number without using an actual phone number so I was not sure how to classify. In any case, thank you to everyone for helping me with this as it is my first Wikidata property suggestion! QRep2020 (talk) 03:47, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Question Do we have that many Signal users among our entries? --NMaia (talk) 09:47, 1 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment I am not sure how to answer that. Journalists do give out their Signal numbers and there are news organizations that publicize ones for the organization as a whole, e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/tips, https://www.propublica.org/tips/, https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tips/. Allow me to update the proposal to include organizations though as that was a mishap on my part. QRep2020 (talk) 12:47, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Any other thoughts or questions? I really think adding this property would contribute to the service. QRep2020 (talk) 17:44, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Support Listing contact addresses of individual people on Wikidata is complicated from a privacy perspective but not any different then phone numbers that we are already storing. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 13:47, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I do not see a good reason for this. Why not just use the existing properties and some qualifiers, e.g., either phone number (P1329) or streaming media URL (P963) (with RFC 3966: The tel URI for Telephone Numbers (Q47467363) Uniform Resource Identifier scheme (Q37071)) and qualifier of (P642) Signal (Q19718090) —Uzume (talk) 02:53, 12 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Please entertain the following reasons, Uzume and others: There is a separate Property for a fax number (fax number (P2900)) from the one for a telephone number (phone number (P1329)) which suggests there is already a point to distinguishing in Wikidata how different telephone "lines" function. Additionally, organizations often list their Signal numbers as is without qualifying them as also being telephone numbers of theirs, e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/tips. Finally, I'd argue the qualifier route allows data extractors, everyone from scrapers to Google itself, to easily ignore such a "this is for Signal" note and therefore promotes the possibility of the number appearing elsewhere qua a regular telephone number when perhaps its owner only ever uses the number for Signal messaging and nothing else (perhaps via the method explored at https://theintercept.com/2017/09/28/signal-tutorial-second-phone-number/). QRep2020 (talk) 04:34, 19 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose I am convinced by Uzume's suggestions to use a qualifier. The existence of one redundant property fax number (P2900) doesn't mean we should create another. And creating a separate property for some phone numbers just makes it harder for users of our data to understand it, not easier. JesseW (talk) 21:08, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Support I think it makes more sense to be a separate property as there are other qualifiers that can then be used such as start time (P580). If overloading phone number (P1329), we would lose this ability to have qualifiers about the subject's use of Signal. Per phone number (P1329) I suggest a string data type and no "tel:" prefix. --Dhx1 (talk) 15:55, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I'm not really convinced by this. Isn't this and Wikidata:Property proposal/WhatsApp_number today the default use for phone numbers? Not sure if Wikidata isn't a good way to check for availability. Potentially we would end up adding additional properties for other services. --- Jura 15:10, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Organizations might have a phone number and not a signal number, or only the signal number might be used, so having that looks useful. If we look at the signal protocol, it only uses phone numbers for the initial authentication. And once that's done you can use signal on a desktop computer that doesn't have access to the public switched telephone network (Q243961) at all. References: https://signal.org/download/ (I've accessed it with a desktop browser) says "To use the Signal desktop app, Signal must first be installed on your phone.", and if we look in more details there is a paper that explains how the signal protocol works in details (https://web.archive.org/web/20160828135326/https://www.internetsociety.org/sites/default/files/09%20when-signal-hits-the-fan-on-the-usability-and-security-of-state-of-the-art-secure-mobile-messaging.pdf) which shows that signal only uses the public switched telephone network (Q243961) for the very first authentication: "State-of-the-art end-to-end encrypted mobile messengers only require users to authenticate via their mobile number;" and "Alice and Bob want to use SIGNAL to exchange end-to-end encrypted messages. (1) Alice installs SIGNAL and verifies her mobile number at the SIGNAL Server with either a verification text message (SMS) or a voice call. Once verified, Alice creates different sets of keys: [...]". GNUtoo (talk) 09:28, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Nepalicoi (talk) 08:20, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per my opposition to the now-declined Wikidata:Property proposal/WhatsApp number. Mahir256 (talk) 18:21, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment It is not merely a telephone number and can be used within the Signal system without telephonic connection upon authentication as pointed out above. A user's Signal number can be identical to their current telephone number, but there are cases where it is not and having one will not get you the other; we distinguish maiden names and surnames with properties, do we not?
Regarding comparisons to Whatsapp, Signal makes very clear its purpose is end-to-end encryption of messages with no metadata preservation, unlike Whatsapp. Providing a Signal number conveys a level of security that its owner has taken. QRep2020 (talk) 02:31, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral ~Namita (talk) 22:01, 12 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Here are some organizations who include a Signal number in their tip reporting options without any mention of a WhatsApp or regular telephone number: