Apple released an update for iPhones and iPads on Wednesday that fixed a bug which allowed law enforcement to extract messages that had been deleted or were sent in disappearing mode.
Police were able to obtain these messages through notifications, which could be cached for up to one month. As first reported by 404 Media, FBI agents were able to extract Signal messages after they had been deleted in Signal due to the notification glitch. This was a huge blow to Signal, as it is used to keep messages private and encrypted. “Notifications for deleted messages shouldn’t remain in any OS notification database,” Signal president Meredith Whittaker wrote on Bluesky.
Privacy activists were alarmed when finding out the FBI had simply went around privacy features that are a daily use for many users. Other apps such as WhatsApp also hinge on privacy, implementing a user-set timer feature that can automatically delete messages after a set time period.
Source: 404 Media Via: TechCrunch
