Apple recently introduced a series of advanced data protection tools that bring powerful encryption to many iCloud services for the first time, including Backup, Photos and Notes, Mail having been notably excluded…
Following which, Google announced that users of Workspace and education services will benefit from end-to-end encryption on the web through their Gmail account.
The timing may be coincidental, but it’s remarkable. On December 13, Apple released iOS 16.2 and macOS 13.1 with Advanced Data Protection for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, but clarified that Mail would not be protected with end-to-end encryption due to the need to interoperate with the global messaging system.
Like Google, Apple’s native Mail supports the optional S/MIME standard for message encryption, but this requires a bit of configuration.
As Bleeping Computer noted, Google already offered end-to-end encryption for Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet, and Calendar, but it wasn’t yet available for Gmail. According to the American giant, the sensitive data contained in the messages and the attachments are indecipherable by its servers. Users retain control of encryption and identity service to access keys.
Customers can request beta access to test the new feature over the coming weeks. Please note that this feature is currently reserved for Enterprise Plus, Education Plus and Education Standard users of its Google Workspace suite.
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