Meredith Whittaker

President of the Signal Foundation and co-founder of the AI Now Institute who warns that AI is a surveillance technology and that agentic AI, by demanding root-level access to every app, eliminates privacy and security at the application layer.

Roles

2006 – Jul 2019Founder, Open Research group, GoogleCore organiser of the 2018 Google Walkout; resigned citing retaliation.Source →
2017 – presentCo-founder, AI Now Institute, New York UniversityFounded with Kate Crawford; later Faculty Director, now Chief Advisor.Source →
Nov 2021 – Sept 2022Senior Advisor on AI to the Chair, US Federal Trade CommissionSource →
Sept 2022 – presentPresident, Signal FoundationAlso a member of the board of directors.Source →
Jul 2025 – presentBoard member, Hubert Burda MediaSource →

On the record

Jun 2026 · Interview · Bloomberg
What you've just described is a system with very pervasive access across multiple applications and services… In the context of Signal, it would constitute a kind of a backdoor.
Board member, Hubert Burda Media at the time
On OS-level AI agents such as Microsoft Copilot; said in a Bloomberg interview, quoted verbatim by TNW on 21 June 2026.
Signal's Meredith Whittaker says AI chatbots 'are not your friends' and calls Copilot agents a backdoor →
7 Mar 2025 · Speech · SXSW 2025
So there's a profound issue with security and privacy that is haunting this hype around agents, and that is ultimately threatening to break the blood-brain barrier between the application layer and the OS layer by conjoining all of these separate services [and] muddying their data.
President, Signal Foundation at the time
The bracketed "[and]" is TechCrunch's own insertion.
Signal President Meredith Whittaker calls out agentic AI as having 'profound' security and privacy issues →
25 Sept 2023 · Interview · TechCrunch Disrupt 2023
AI is a surveillance technology… AI is a way, I think, to entrench and expand the surveillance business model.
President, Signal Foundation at the time
Signal's Meredith Whittaker: AI is fundamentally 'a surveillance technology' →
7 Sept 2023 · Interview · TIME
The Venn diagram of privacy concerns and AI concerns is a circle.
President, Signal Foundation at the time
TIME100 AI 2023: Meredith Whittaker →