Companies / Apple (iMessage, iCloud)

Apple (iMessage, iCloud)

Can't read your messages

except iCloud Mail

iMessage · FaceTime

End-to-end encrypted — out of scope — assessed 26 Jul 2026

iMessage is end-to-end encrypted and out of scope; the 2021 on-device photo-scanning plan was abandoned in 2022. Separately, Breyer’s tracking lists iCloud Mail among derogation services and Apple has said it checks mail attachments since 2019 — but Apple is not among the five providers filing the derogation’s reports. Both facts are recorded.

“prescreening or scanning uploaded content for potentially illegal content” — from Apple (iMessage, iCloud)'s privacy policy, as archived here

Sources: Archived iMessage security overview · Overview of derogation users (Patrick Breyer) · what this status means · dispute it

Which services the evidence names

Exception The status above describes iMessage, FaceTime. It does not cover iCloud Mail, which a tracked source names among the services using the derogation. One company can run both a service that cannot be read and a service that is scanned, and this is that case.

Apple is not one of the five providers that file the derogation’s reports, so unlike Google, Meta and Microsoft there is no filing here naming a service. What Apple does say in its own documents is that it prescreens uploaded content for child sexual exploitation material, and that iCloud Mail is not end-to-end encrypted. Breyer’s overview separately lists iCloud Mail among derogation services. The exception is drawn from those together, and that is a weaker chain than a filing — stated here so you can judge it rather than take it.

Named iCloud Mail — named in Apple’s own Privacy Policy and iCloud security overview, archived here: prescreening or scanning uploaded content for potentially illegal content, including child sexual exploitation material iCloud Mail does not use end-to-end encryption because of the need to interoperate with the global email system

Covered by the status iMessage and FaceTime are end-to-end encrypted, which Apple documents and which puts them outside the scope of this derogation entirely.

A status is a claim about a service. Grouping Apple under one verdict would have made the site say something untrue about one of its products, so the exception is stated wherever the status is.

What we watch for — Apple's content is end-to-end encrypted, which keeps it out of Chat Control's scope. We watch for weakened encryption claims, client-side scanning language, or new qualifiers around E2EE in these documents.

Services: iMessage, FaceTime, iCloud Mail (evidence names iCloud Mail)
Status: Can't read your messages
Held since: 26 Jul 2026
Documents: 4 tracked
Changes recorded: 4 — latest 5 Sep 2026

Tracked documents

Document	Last fetched	Size	Hash	Snapshot
Privacy Policy www.apple.com	26 Jul 2026	29,824 chars	649ba6e1308a	text · raw · wayback
iCloud Data Security Overview support.apple.com	26 Jul 2026	15,104 chars	069062bf5024	text · raw · wayback
iMessage Security Overview support.apple.com	26 Aug 2026	8,492 chars	a651d4e34221	text · raw · wayback
Transparency Report www.apple.com	5 Sep 2026	17,308 chars	8cb694b60de6	text · raw · wayback

text is the extracted record we hash and diff; raw is the page's original HTML kept verbatim as evidence — it renders without its styling here, by design.

What we searched for

A status that rests on absence is only as good as the search behind it. Every one of Apple (iMessage, iCloud)'s 4 archived documents (70,732 characters) was searched for the same published vocabulary used on every company here — in English, German and French. The search is a plain function of the archived text and re-runs whenever that text changes, so it always describes the documents listed above. Re-run it against this archive yourself with tools/scan-terms.mjs.

Term	Hits	In context
child sexual abuse / Kindesmissbrauch	1	“…it of all our users, and prescreening or scanning uploaded content for potentially illegal content, including child sexual exploitation material. Personal Data Used for Personalization. If you choose to personalize your services or communicatio…” — privacy
scan / scanning / gescannt	1	“…including to protect individuals, employees, and Apple for the benefit of all our users, and prescreening or scanning uploaded content for potentially illegal content, including child sexual exploitation material. Personal Dat…” — privacy

Found nowhere in these documents: Regulation 2021/1232 · derogation / Ausnahmeregelung / dérogation · Chat Control / Chatkontrolle · ePrivacy · CSAM / CSAE · NCMEC / CyberTipline · PhotoDNA · hash matching / hash database · Internet Watch Foundation · automated detection / automatisierte Erkennung · classifier / machine learning detection · monitor content / review content

Record RSS ↗

5 Sep 2026 Apple (iMessage, iCloud) — Transparency Report document +72 −90
26 Aug 2026 Apple (iMessage, iCloud) — iMessage Security Overview document +3 −29
4 Aug 2026 Apple (iMessage, iCloud) — iMessage Security Overview minor +9 −1
31 Jul 2026 Apple (iMessage, iCloud) — iMessage Security Overview minor +0 −6
26 Jul 2026 Apple (iMessage, iCloud) — Transparency Report baseline first recording
26 Jul 2026 Apple (iMessage, iCloud) — iCloud Data Security Overview baseline first recording
26 Jul 2026 Apple (iMessage, iCloud) — iMessage Security Overview baseline first recording
26 Jul 2026 Apple (iMessage, iCloud) — Privacy Policy baseline first recording