The 9to5Google crew has found evidence of plans to add end-to-end encryption to RCS conversations in Google Messages. While full details of how this would work aren’t clear, you could decide whether not third-party apps see encrypted messages. It’s also safe to assume that both participants would need a compatible app with reliable data connections.
An internal build of Google Messages v. 6.2 has several lines of code that offer clues to possible future features for the app, including 12 new strings that refer to encryption, according to 9to5 Google’s analysis. There isn’t enough information available to determine whether the sender and recipient of texts in Messages would need to be using the app for the end-to-end encryption to be in effect. The code updates do suggest a setting that might allow users to decide whether to grant permission to other Android apps that have access to messages to see encrypted messages as well.
There’s no way to know if or when Google will ever ship the end-to-end encryption feature. But the company has said previously that it was working on it, so it seems likely to happen.
