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Google has worked a lot on improving the security and privacy of Android devices, especially Pixel phones. However, the company now seems to be rolling out a new RCS feature in Google Messages that could let employers view messages on company-managed Pixel phones.
As noted by Google in a blog post, the company is rolling out a new “RCS message archival” feature for fully-managed Google Pixel devices. According to Google, this will help organizations meet “strict compliance” requirements for record-keeping and legal requests for employee communications.
In simple terms, this means that if you use a company-managed Pixel phone, your employer may be able to see the messages you send and receive.
RCS, as we all know, is the new standard for end-to-end encrypted messaging on Android and also enables secure texting with iPhones. While this is great for users, it has made it harder for organizations to meet compliance rules, since encrypted messaging breaks the old carrier-level logging systems. Previously, companies relied on carriers to log messages, but that’s no longer possible.
To work around this issue, Google has introduced support for third-party archival apps that can integrate directly with Google Messages on work-managed devices.
When enabled on an organization-owned Pixel, the archival app is notified whenever an RCS message is received. It’s also notified when a message is sent, received, edited, or deleted.
Google mentions that the archival app can read the message data and make it available to the IT department. However, the company notes that everything remains end-to-end encrypted and the archival app doesn’t share data online or with Google since the entire process happens on-device.
Google says it has already added support for third-party vendors including Celltrust, Smarsh, and 3rd Eye, with more coming next year.
That said, this feature is limited to company-managed devices and won’t affect personal Pixel phones. Even on work devices, the feature must be enabled by IT administrators, and when it’s active, employees will see a clear notification indicating that archival is running.
