RCS Encryption Between Android and iPhones is Hopefully Next

The big news of the week for Android users who want to send messages to their friends with iPhones involves the big update to iOS 18 that was just released by Apple. With this update, iPhone owners can send RCS messages over to Android users, meaning big updates to the messaging experience between the two.

Things like typing indicators, read receipts, improvements to group messaging, and high-quality media sharing are all a part of this upgrade between the two platforms. Yes, green bubbles are still there, but overall, the upgrade to RCS by Apple should be welcomed and is a big deal.

There is one thing missing, though, and that is encryption. Google has offered end-to-end encryption of RCS messages within their Google Messages app since 2020 and took the step to make it on by default just last year. However, between an Android device and an iPhone, there currently is no encryption. The industry is at least telling us that they are working on it.

This week, the GSMA, which is behind the RCS Universal Profile (aka the industry standard of RCS messaging), said that they see the “next major milestone” for RCS as adding end-to-end encryption. They are working to deploy standardized, interoperable messaging encryption between different platforms, like Android and iOS.

Unfortunately, there is no timeline for encryption to arrive, this is simply an acknowledgement by the governing body that it is an important next item to introduce. Knowing how this industry moves and how long it took for RCS to become a thing, I’m not exactly optimistic in encryption arriving any time soon.