Is Discord Listening to Your Voice Conversations?

Communication is hassle-free, and Discord’s latency is usually better than most apps. However, with this convenience comes a worrying question: are Discord chats and calls private enough? Is Discord listening?

Sometimes, it can’t be avoided to discuss sensitive and personal topics online, especially if you feel comfortable with the people you’re talking to. Although it would be best to avoid divulging personal stuff and discussing private matters online, there are times that people just can’t help it.

On the other hand, people may also blurt out things that might be against the community guidelines. Remembering this, they will start to wonder if someone has recorded the conversation or Discord has somehow heard what they say. They might even be worried about getting banned, getting into trouble, or worse, facing a more serious consequence.

Whether we intended it to or not, there are things that we say online that we may not want to express in normal settings, like face-to-face conversations or in an email with your colleague. Even if it’s in a voice channel where only a handful of people can hear, the thought that Discord may be listening to your calls is quite concerning.

However, are Discord calls recorded? Is anybody (that you are not aware of) joining in the voice channel and listening to everything you say?

Now, before you declare that Discord is another app that seemed to be taken straight out of 1984, you might as well calm down. For a moment.

First of all, unless there’s a 24/7 staff on Discord listening to every conversation that happened in all servers that exist on the platform, there’s no way that Discord is listening in real-time. Perhaps unless your server is under investigation by Discord’s support team for something serious, you probably won’t have to worry about it.

How about past conversations? Can the Discord app listen to them?

As of now, there’s no way for Discord to listen to past conversations unless they are recorded by someone. Most likely, Discord doesn’t keep a copy of every voice chat recording. Imagine the sheer volume of conversations that have to be recorded and sorted. Following that logic, it’s safe to say that listening to unrecorded or untracked past conversations seemed to be an impossible task.

Unlike text chat, which is easier to track and locate (through message IDs and bots), voice chats are more difficult to store and retrieve. Again, unless it is recorded (which is most likely not the case) there won’t be any way to know what people were talking about in a voice channel or chat.

It’s true that Discord states in their Privacy Policy that they collect information from its users, but they don’t store voice calls. They may store, for example, transient VoIP data to send to other users. However, they don’t store them for too long. As they have said on their Privacy Policy page:

We generally do not store the contents of video or voice calls or channels.

This is good news in terms of voice channel privacy. Discord isn’t likely listening to your conversations via voice channels or chats, nor do they keep records of the conversations that happened.

So, there. No need to worry. Unless you’re under surveillance for something serious (for example, you’ve been reported for a grave or legal offense), Discord isn’t listening to your call.

However, what if someone is harassing you on the voice channels? Is there a way for Discord to listen to track and listen to the voice call in question?

In the same manner, it’s highly unlikely that Discord will be able to retrieve the conversation if it happened via voice chatting.

However, if you or anyone you know is being harassed on the platform by malicious individuals, the best defense you can do is to either mute or block them.

If you want to file a report against a Discord user with a concerning behavior, but the topics in question were only discussed on a voice call, you may need to record it to have solid proof.

There are bots and third-party apps you can find that allow you to record Discord conversations yourself. You can also tell the server mods (if they’re not involved in the group of people harassing you) about your concern. They may be able to listen to conversations without those users in question noticing. You can read more about this particular topic in the section below.

Mods and admins can help track the conversation of the users who violated the rules. They can either mute, block, or ban them. If the issue is too concerning, they can help you raise the problem to Discord itself.

At the end of the day, your safety and peace of mind matter the most, so block those users if you could.

Unlike voice activity, text messages, channels, servers, and even DMs have a unique ID, a string of 18 characters dedicated to them. While Discord doesn’t necessarily keep track of these as much as the voice activity, they can still read the messages you sent if they were able to locate and read them using the message ID.

Also, apparently, Discord doesn’t offer full end-to-end encryption, so the content of your chat might still be leaked. This is true for many instant messaging platforms, though.

Unlikely, but it can happen. Remember that anyone who enters a voice channel can be seen by other members, even if they’re on mute. However, some mods may use bots to listen to a voice channel. These are called “eavesdropping bots”.

Their features and functionality may differ from one bot to another. For example, a particular eavesdropping bot can target a specific user and log everything they say in a private channel. This can be useful to put someone suspected of breaking the rules under surveillance. It’s used to find the proof they are indeed violating the server’s and Discord’s Community Guidelines.

In addition, wiretapping is generally illegal in many parts of the world, unless there’s court approval or consent from one of the parties involved. Therefore, listening and recording the conversation for the sake of harming that particular user can bring you trouble, so it’s best to avoid it.

People can still track text and voice messages, although it can be a difficult thing to do. As I’ve said, Discord doesn’t have end-to-end encryption, so messages and other activity can be leaked. The chances for it to happen are pretty low, but it’s possible.

Apart from that, they may also track your other activities, especially if you have connected accounts to Discord, such as Spotify.

Spotify Listen

If you connect Spotify to your Discord account, other people will know what music you’re listening to if they click on your profile.

However, this is a feature used by many Discord users to share what they’re listening to. They can also invite friends through the “Listen Along” feature available on Discord. However, “Listen Along” is only available for Spotify premium members. You can still connect Spotify and Discord, though, even without a Spotify premium membership.

Discord will automatically update it as your message status if you have a Spotify connection. They can play the song you’re playing if they have a Spotify account themselves.

If you don’t want to enable this feature, you can disconnect it via the User Settings page on Discord. Just go to User Settings > Connections. There, you can see the list of accounts you’ve connected to your Discord. You can see here the Spotify name you’ve connected to Discord.

Simply click the “x” beside the Spotify logo to disconnect your account.

Playing Games

If you’re playing games, other people will know it because it will be shown as your Activity Status. However, you can hide this by going to User Settings > Activity Status.

Because other people can see the name of the game you are currently playing, they might also know if you’re streaming. While this is the case, it’s unlikely they will clearly see it, though.

Again, the activities other people (or Discord) can track pretty much depend on how much data you give them. If you’ve connected several of your accounts to Discord, they might become aware of it and connect with you on those platforms, too.

Important note: If you think someone is tracking your Discord activities to mean you harm (for example, phishing or blackmailing), report it to Discord support immediately. After all, these kinds of stuff are against the Community Guidelines and this can result in a ban or even legal action against them.