Apple has released a security update following recent reporting that the FBI was able to access Signal notification content on iOS, even after the app had been deleted.
A flaw in Apple’s notification system allowed notifications that were meant to be deleted to remain temporarily stored on an iPhone or iPad. The vulnerability was exposed by 404 Media based on recent court testimony. In the case, the FBI confirmed they had been able to recover incoming Signal messages from a defendant’s iPhone even after the Signal app had been removed and the messages had been set to disappear.
The messages were not retrieved from Signal itself, but from the device’s internal notification storage. Importantly, Signal’s end-to-end encryption was not broken or hacked in this process. The messages that were recovered were incoming notifications, which had appeared as Lock Screen previews when they arrived. With notification previews enabled, iOS processes and temporarily stores message content in order to display it on the Lock Screen.
Apple says it has addressed the issue by improving data redaction in logging. Users do not need to take any additional action beyond installing the update: any inadvertently preserved notifications will be automatically deleted, and future notifications will no longer be retained for deleted apps.
For enhanced privacy, users can also disable message previews in Signal’s notifications settings: go to Settings > Notifications > Notification Content > Show and select ‘No Name or Content’.
On social media, Signal has expressed appreciation for Apple’s swift response, emphasizing the importance of ecosystem-wide efforts to safeguard the fundamental human right to private communication:
We’re grateful to Apple for the quick action here, and for understanding and acting on the stakes of this kind of issue. It takes an ecosystem to preserve the fundamental human right to private communication.
— Signal (@signal.org) 23 april 2026 om 00:38
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