FBI Recovers Deleted Signal Messages from iPhone Notifications

Even encrypted messages aren’t always safe. LΣҒΔ𝕽ΩLL 🇮🇱 reported that the FBI managed to retrieve deleted incoming messages from Signal on an iPhone. This was possible because the message content was preserved in the iPhone’s notification database, even after the messages disappeared from the Signal app itself or the app was deleted. This technique works if message previews were enabled and visible on the lock screen or notification shade. LΣҒΔ𝕽ΩLL 🇮🇱 clarified that this doesn’t involve breaking Signal’s end-to-end encryption, but rather exploiting how iOS handles notification data.

This isn’t entirely new territory. Back in 2023, Ron Wyden highlighted that governments were requesting push notification data from Apple and Google to track users. Apple eventually confirmed this practice, though it later tightened its US policy to require a warrant for such data. The core issue remains: even if a message is deleted from the app, its ephemeral presence as a notification can be a data leak vector.