EFFector Volume 38, Issue 10

🔒 A Win for Encrypted Messaging

Welcome to an all-new EFFector, your regular digest on everything digital rights from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

In our 845th issue: The shaky science backing social media bans, Canada's surveillance nightmare bill, and a victory for keeping private messages private.

When you lose your rights online, you lose them in real life. Become an EFF member today!

Featured Story: End-to-End Encrypted RCS Comes to Apple and Android Chats

This week, Apple released iOS 26.5, an update that supports end-to-end encryption for Rich Communication Services (RCS), meaning conversations between Android and iPhone will soon be encrypted in the default chat apps. This has been a long time coming, and is a welcome delivery on a promise both Google and Apple made.

With this update, conversations that take place between Apple’s Messages app and Google Messages on Android will be end-to-end encrypted by default, as long as the carrier supports both RCS and encrypted messages (you can find a list of carriers here). RCS messages are a replacement for SMS, and in 2024 Apple started supporting it, making for a marked improvement in the quality of images and other media shared between Android and iPhones.

Now, those conversations can also benefit from the increased privacy and security that end-to-end encryption offers, making it so neither Google, Apple, nor the cellular carriers have access to the contents of messages.

Metadata will likely continue to be collected and stored for these conversations, making alternatives like Signal still a better option for many conversations. Likewise, if you back up those conversations to the cloud, they may be stored unencrypted unless you enable Advanced Data Protection on iOS (Google Messages end-to-end encrypts the text of messages in backups, but not the media, so we’d like to see a similar offering as ADP on Android). Still, this is a significant step forward for the privacy of millions of conversations worldwide.

READ MORE…

‌EFF Updates

🇨🇦 OH, CANADA: Last year, the Canadian government pushed Bill C-2, a proposal to erode Canadian digital rights in the name of “border security.” Now, comes that bill's dreaded sequel, Bill C-22. Among other threats to privacy, Bill C-22 would pave the way to backdoor encrypted communications of users around the world. But no matter what lawmakers would like you to believe, there's no way to create a backdoor that only lets the "good guys" in.

🌎 HUMAN RIGHTS: Digital surveillance abuses are being normalized across the Americas—but we can fight back. EFF's new guide, Tackling Arbitrary Digital Surveillance in the Americas, lays out concrete steps governments must take to protect privacy rights and end arbitrary state surveillance. The great majority of states in Latin America have ratified the American Convention on Human Rights. As such, the parameters and rules our new guide describes stem directly from their obligations before international human rights law. State agents and institutions must take the necessary measures to make them a reality.

🚫 SOCIAL MEDIA BANS: As statehouses ramp up for 2026, we’re seeing a concerning trend: lawmakers rushing to regulate the internet based on flawed research. We cannot allow emotion or incomplete data sets to justify a historic rollback of digital rights. Policymakers are legislating blanket bans on social media based on evidence that would be rejected in any other field of public health. Before imposing these draconian measures, they must listen to the experts sounding the alarm on oversimplified conclusions.

🔒 OUR PRIVACY POLICY: We recently updated our privacy policy for the first time since 2022. There's one change in particular we want to highlight: opt-in email tracking. We are introducing the option for you to provide explicit, opt-in consent for us to see how you interact with the emails we send you. Read our blog post to learn more.

Shut Down Turnkey Totalitarianism

William Binney, the NSA surveillance architect-turned-whistleblower, called it the "turnkey totalitarian state." Whoever sits in power gains access to a boundless surveillance empire that scorns privacy and crushes dissent.

Right now, U.S. Congress is on the edge of renewing the international mass spying program known as Section 702, affecting millions. EFF is rallying to cut through the politics and give ordinary people a chance to stop this oppressive surveillance. It's only possible with help from supporters like you.

Fresh EFF Gear Is Here

Show off your support for EFF with hot digital rights merch from our online store. Just in: emoji-inspired pins and stickers illustrating EFF activist Cory Doctorow’s concept of “enshittification.”

In addition to EFF shirts and hoodies, we have a wide variety of freedom-supporting swag in stock, including (extremely popular) liquid core gaming dice, HTTP playing cards, and a tactile Lady Justice braille sticker.

Administrivia

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About EFF

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit defending online civil liberties. We promote digital innovation, defend free speech, fight illegal surveillance, and protect rights and freedoms for all as our use of technology grows. Find out more at https://www.eff.org/.

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