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by John W. Simek, Vice President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.

Want Secure Apple iMessage? Disable iCloud

January 28, 2021

If you are really focused on privacy, end-to-end encryption is your friend. Encrypting the data transmission from source to destination will prevent exposure should there be unauthorized access. Communication services such as WhatsApp, iMessage, Telegram and Signal all offer end-to-end encryption. How-To Geek has pointed out in a post that there is one exception.

The default configuration for Apple’s iMessage does NOT protect the data. Even though the data is encrypted during transmission, messages are also backed up to iCloud automatically in an encrypted form. The problem is that Apple also has access to the key when the data is stored in iCloud. If you want to totally protect your iMessage conversations, turn off the iCloud backup of those messages. This protection is true for anything you send to iCloud. Anything you send to iCloud can potentially be viewed by Apple.

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