Apple to add end-to-end encryption support for RCS – Six Colors

Jess Weatherbed writing at The Verge, with a statement from Apple’s Shane Bauer:

“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 spokesperson Shane Bauer. “We will add support for end-to-end encrypted RCS messages to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS in future software updates.”

Personally, I never really thought it made sense for Apple, a company whose brand is about security and privacy, to withhold support for encryption on RCS. But the real issue was that the RCS standard did not include support for cross-platform encryption, even though other providers, like Google, enabled encryption on their platforms. So it doesn’t surprise me to see that this move is being made in concert with the GSM Association, which oversees the RCS standard.

As a user, you shouldn’t have to worry which of your messages are secure or not, and Apple certainly doesn’t want to have explain that those blue bubbles are safe and green bubbles are not. ^{It behooves Apple to be a good citizen and realize that there are people who use other platforms. Like with emoji reactions, this is a case where making a feature work cross-platform improves the lives and experience of Apple’s own customers.}

There’s no timeline for this, so it could arrive in iOS 18/macOS Sequoia updates in the next few months, but I think it more likely we’ll see it mentioned as part of Apple’s WWDC announcements in June.