Last March, Apple announced plans to support end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for RCS messages, following the standardization of the feature by the GSM Association. After nearly a year of silence on that front, today’s betas suggest that Apple is moving closer to rolling it out.
Feature is mandatory, except where prohibited by local regulations
As spotted by Tiino-X83 on X, iOS 26.3 beta 2 contains references to a new carrier bundle setting that would allow carriers to enable or disable E2EE for RCS messages.
Interestingly, Tiino-X83 also noted that “only the four main French carriers (Bouygues, Orange, SFR and Free) have this line of code,” and that “no other carrier, regardless of the country” he checked, had it.
Par contre, c’est très bizarre, seuls les quatre principaux opérateurs français (Bouygues, Orange, SFR et Free) ont cette ligne de code !
Aucun autre opérateur, quel que soit le pays que j’ai regardé, n’a cette ligne de code 🧐
Poke @aaronp613 — Tiino-X83 (@TiinoX83) January 12, 2026
While the GSMA’s documentation states that RCS clients must enable E2EE by default, this default can be restricted by local regulations:
... continue reading