Posted: Post Date – 11:30 AM, Sat – Oct 29th 22
San Francisco: Google appears to have started testing end-to-end encryption for its Messages group chats.
The tech giant first announced earlier this year that it plans to provide end-to-end encryption for group chats via RCS (Rich Communication Services) in the messaging app, and plans to launch a public test of the feature by the end of 2022, 9To5Google reports.
Reddit users in large group chats noticed a message by saying it was encrypted.
Further research by Redditors revealed that Google Messages enabled end-to-end encryption for group chats, making RCS group chats secure.
According to the report, the setting must be enabled for every user in an RCS group chat for true end-to-end encryption.
With the feature rolling out globally in late 2020, the RCS experience for Google Messages gets end-to-end encryption for the first time.
Group chats were not encrypted, as more secure messaging at the time was only available for one-to-one conversations.
Earlier, Messages rolled out an upgrade with iOS emoji reactions.
With the update, the tech giant has filled a significant gap between Android and iOS users. Prior to the update, emoji reactions sent from the iPhone would be translated into textual descriptions such as “liked image” instead of the actual like button.