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 almost a year of silence, today’s iOS 26.3 beta suggests Apple is moving forward.
Feature is mandatory, except where prohibited by local regulations
As spotted by Tiino-X83 on X, iOS 26.3 beta 2 contains a new carrier bundle setting. This setting would allow carriers to enable or disable E2EE for RCS messages.
Notably, Tiino-X83 also observed that “only the four main French carriers (Bouygues, Orange, SFR and Free) have this code.” No othre carrier checked, irrespective of country, dose.
The GSMA’s documentation states RCS clients must enable E2EE by default, but local regulations can restrict this.
R5-43-1 RCS clients shall enable E2EE by default unless expressly prohibited by local regulations.
R5-43-1-1 The RCS client provider shall enable or disable E2EE for all their users in a market of operation.
R5-43-1-2 The RCS client provider shall not enable or disable E2EE for a subset of users, or for individual users in a market of operation.
R5-43-1-3 if E2EE is disabled, the user shall be informed that E2EE is not available in their market of operation. R5-43-2 All User Initiated Content shall be end-to-end encrypted, excluding “Is typing” notifications
If E2EE is active, the GSMA standard requires users to see the encryption status. The carrier bundle setting in the iOS 26.3 beta could manage these requirements.
ItS not guaranteed the feature arrives with iOS 26.3. Apple might be prepping for a future iOS release.
Still, the code’s presence suggests support could arrive soon.
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