However, instant messaging traffic (text) is sent via Skype servers, and apparently only encrypted only en route. On one hand, Microsoft is pretty clear 1 that Skype-to-Skype traffic is encrypted end-to-end. Skype calls recorded by Skype: unlikelyįor other types of calls - text, audio, or video - I don’t believe Skype is recording or listening … but it’s now clear that it would be possible.Įncryption in Skype remains murky. I expect most people will read that as “don’t use Skype”, instead. The big take-away from all that? If you have something that really needs to be private, don’t use the translation service. The reason is simple: while the real-time translation is automated, real people may listen to conversation snippets in order to improve future translations. Microsoft has admitted that contractors may have access to recordings of at least portions of those conversations. The Skype translation service offers real-time automated translation from one language to another. It turns out there are scenarios where Skype (owned by Microsoft) may be listening in - kind of. Unfortunately, many are paying a very steep price for that.

However, there’s another, potentially much more dangerous scenario a lot of people overlook.

I’ll dive into a number of reasons I believe that it’s still mostly private and nothing, really, to worry about. Recently there’s been a wrinkle that indicates things may not be quite as private as we thought. In the past, my answer was that I thought it extremely unlikely that your Skype calls are recorded … at least by Skype.

Skype video call