Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The GSM Association (GSMA), which develops the RCS messaging standard, announced on Tuesday that it’s working on adding end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for messages sent between Android and iPhone. E2EE ensures that no third party, like your messaging app or cell carrier, can see your texts.
According to GSMA technical director Tom Van Pelt, the next big step for RCS is to enable secure, encrypted messaging between different platforms. This would improve communication across devices, especially now that Apple supports RCS.
With the iOS 18 update, Apple has switched from SMS to RCS for messages sent to Android users. While green bubbles remain, this change allows for high-quality media sharing, read receipts, and typing indicators across platforms. However, one important feature still missing from Apple’s RCS is end-to-end encryption.
Not all RCS messaging services currently offer end-to-end encryption (E2EE). One exception is Google Messages, which began enabling E2EE by default for RCS chats last year. Apple’s iMessage also has E2EE, but this protection doesn’t extend to RCS messages.
Elmar Weber, a general manager at Google, shared on LinkedIn, “We believe E2EE is crucial for secure messaging, and we’re working with others to bring cross-platform E2EE to RCS chats soon. Google is committed to ensuring all RCS users, no matter the platform, have secure, private messaging.”
As an Android user, I’m just glad I’ll finally be able to send high-quality photos and videos to my friends with iPhones E2EE would be a bonus.