Apple has announced that it will add support for end-to-end encryption to RCS messaging on iOS, although there are few details about when this will happen.
After years of bizarre pressure over how Messages has blue bubbles for iOS users and green for Android ones, and maybe a nudge from China, Apple finally added support for RCS messaging with iOS 18. Its implementation, though, did not support Google’s implementation of end-to-end encryption.
Now as first spotted by 9to5mac, the RCS standards body GSM Assocation (GSMA) and Apple have announced new end-to-end encryption support on iOS.
“End-to-end encryption is a powerful privacy and security technology that iMessage has supported since the beginning, and now we are pleased to have helped lead a cross industry effort to bring end-to-end encryption to the RCS Universal Profile published by the GSMA,” said Apple in a statement. “We will add support for end-to-end encrypted RCS messages to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS in future software updates.”
Apple’s RCS support has followed the GSMA standard, and this announcement comes as the authority releases a new specification called the RCS Universal Profile 3.0. Designed in collaboration with Apple, this new profile includes end-to-end encryption as part of the standard, instead of being an extra layer added by Google.
“[The] new specifications define how to apply MLS [Messaging Layer Security] within the context of RCS,” wrote Tom Van Pelt, GSMA Technical Director, in a statement. “These procedures ensure that messages and other content such as files remain confidential and secure as they travel between clients.”
“That means that RCS will be the first large-scale messaging service to support interoperable E2EE between client implementations from different providers,” continued Van Pelt.
Apple’s announcement was simultaneous with the GSMA’s one about the release of RCS Universal Profile 3.0. It’s not clear how long it will take any firm to implement the new standard, and Apple has not committed to when it will support it in iOS.
RCS support on iOS means that messages between iPhone and Android users can contain images and other rich media rather than solely text. While Google has tried to portray it as superior to Messages, but to date different firms have added different end-to-end encryption extensions, and carriers were slow to adopt it.
