“Today, I am pleased to announce the next milestone: the availability of new GSMA specifications for RCS that include end-to-end encryption (E2EE) based on the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol.
Most notably, the new specifications define how to apply MLS within the context of RCS. 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.”
Apple has already made a statement to 9to5Mac, stating that the company is “pleased to have helped lead a cross industry effort to bring end-to-end encryption to the RCS Universal Profile published by the GSMA. We will add support for end-to-end encrypted RCS messages to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS in future software updates.”
The “future software updates” part makes me wonder if this will even be in the next software releases due to be revealed in June at WWDC 2025, or if it’ll wait until WWDC 2026. Only time will tell!