iPhone Setting Update—Stop FBI From Accessing Deleted Signal Messages

This isn't a story about breaking Signal message encryption. It's a story about how most users forget that when they lose possession of their smartphone, even an iPhone, it is generally game over in terms of expectations of privacy. So when it was reported that the FBI had been able to extract incoming messages from an iPhone it had seized, despite the Signal app itself being deleted, it made a big splash in online privacy circles. Now, Signal CEO, Meredith Whittaker, has taken to the X social media platform with a simple settings change for iPhone users that will stop this from happening again. Here's what you need to know.

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The iPhone Signal Message Extraction Furore

While Apple's smartphone ecosystem has been exposed to numerous security issues over the years, from recent spyware scares to authentication code app vulnerabilities , on the whole, the iPhone is regarded as one of the best phones for those who care about their privacy. The same can definitely be said about Signal as far as encrypted messaging apps are concerned. So, when it is confirmed that the FBI can extract incoming Signal messages on an iPhone in the physical possession of agents, even if the Signal app itself has already been deleted, and messages were set to self-destruct, alarm bells tend to sound. Especially on social media.

Of course, this means there will be many bad takes. Including that Signals end-to-end encryption had somehow been broken. It hadn't. Or that Signal itself has a massive privacy vulnerability. It doesn't. Most reported Signal attacks are, truth be told, simply phishing campaigns against users and nothing more. So, what happened?

Well, the answer sits with the iPhone itself, rather than Signal per se, and the iOS operating system specifically. What the FBI did was extract the content of notifications from the smartphone, including Signal ones. The user hadn't configured these so as not to show the message details on the lock screen. That's it. Well, kind of. There are questions about whether iOS should be storing notification content in the way it does, especially for deleted messages, and the Signal CEO said that she has approached Apple about this.

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Signal CEO Explains How To Protect Message Notification Privacy On An iPhone

In an April 15 posting on X , Meredith Whittaker said that "Notifications for deleted messages shouldn't remain in any OS notification database, and we've asked Apple to address this."

But here's the best bit, Whittaker also explained how users of Signal on the iPhone "can prevent any preview text from your Signal messages from appearing in your notifications."

The trick? It's so simple: Signal Settings | Notifications | Show "No Name or Content"

Yep, that's all you have to do to ensure that your private Signal messages stay private on your iPhone, at least as far as the FBI or anyone else using the notification content trick to extract them goes.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com