The GSM Association, the governing body that oversees the development of the Rich Communications Services (RCS) protocol, announced Tuesday that it is working on implementing end-to-end encryption (E2EE) to secure messages sent between the Android and iOS ecosystems.
“The next major milestone is that the RCS Universal Profile adds important user protections, such as interoperable end-to-end encryption,” said Tom Van Pelt, GSMA’s Chief Technical Officer.
“This is the first implementation of standardized, interoperable message encryption across different computing platforms, addressing important technical challenges such as key federation and cryptographically enforced group membership.”
The development comes a day after Apple officially rolled out iOS 18 with support for RCS in its Messages app, which brings advanced features such as message replies, typing indicators, read receipts, high-quality media sharing, and more.
RCS, an improvement over the current SMS standard, is currently not end-to-end encrypted by default. Therefore, Google decided to implement the Signal protocol to secure RCS conversations on Android.
Earlier this year, Apple said it would work with GSMA members to integrate encryption. It’s worth noting that the company’s own iMessage service is E2EE-compliant.
“We look forward to continuing to collaborate across the mobile ecosystem to enhance the RCS standard with interoperable end-to-end encryption, ensuring all RCS messages remain private and secure,” said Van Pelt.
Google also announced plans last July to integrate the Message Layer Security (MLS) protocol into its Messages app for Android to facilitate interoperability across messaging services and platforms.
This month, Meta outlined its approach to enabling interoperability with third-party messaging services in WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger as part of its efforts to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), while preserving E2EE guarantees “to the extent possible”.
“Building third-party chats is technically challenging, and maintaining privacy and security is a shared responsibility,” the social media company said. “We’ve come a long way, but there’s still a lot more to build.”
