The green bubble just got a lock. Apple and Google have started rolling out end-to-end encryption for RCS messages between iPhones and Android devices, closing the single biggest privacy gap in cross-platform texting.
The rollout began on May 11 with iOS 26.5 on the Apple side and the latest version of Google Messages on Android. When both ends of a conversation support the new standard, a lock icon appears in the chat — the same visual cue iMessage and Google's own RCS chats have used for years, now extended across the platform divide.
The encryption is built on the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol, an open standard overseen by the Internet Engineering Task Force. It was incorporated into the GSMA's RCS Universal Profile 3.0 specification in March 2025, with both Apple and Google committing to implement it. That commitment is now shipping code.
Encryption is on by default. New and existing RCS conversations will be automatically upgraded as both participants run compatible software on carriers that support the latest RCS standard. No user action is required — the lock icon simply appears once both sides qualify.
Apple first added RCS to iOS in late 2024 with iOS 18, ending years of pressure from Google and regulators. But the initial implementation lacked encryption, meaning every iPhone-to-Android RCS message traveled without the end-to-end protection that iMessage and Google's own RCS implementation had offered internally for years. Beta testing of E2EE RCS began in iOS 26.5 beta 2 in April, confirming Apple's intention to ship the feature.
The technical challenge was interoperability. Google had already encrypted its own RCS implementation, but Apple and Google needed a shared standard that worked across two completely different messaging clients. MLS provided that bridge — a protocol designed specifically for multi-party, multi-platform encrypted messaging.
For the roughly two billion people who text between iPhones and Android phones, the practical change is significant. RCS messages — which already supported read receipts, typing indicators, high-resolution media, and group chat improvements over SMS — now travel with the same encryption guarantees as iMessage or Signal between those platforms.
RCS is also the first large-scale messaging service to support interoperable end-to-end encryption between client implementations from different providers. WhatsApp, Signal, and iMessage are each encrypted within their own ecosystems, but none of them encrypt messages sent to a different app. RCS with MLS does.
The rollout is in beta and will expand over time as more carriers enable support. Both Apple and Google have published details — Apple via its newsroom and Google on its blog. For most users, the upgrade will happen silently — one day the lock icon just appears, and the green bubble stops being the privacy liability it used to be. The GSMA has since refined the encryption handshake in Universal Profile 4.1, which also adds profile visibility controls and faster gRPC transport.
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