How to Make Sure Your Secret Signal Messages Haven’t Been Spying on Your Phone

Your private messages sent via A messaging app it may not be as hidden as you think — even if you uninstall the app. 404 Media reported this week that the FBI was able to extract messages from within an iPhone’s notifications system, long after a user deleted the privacy-focused messaging app.

In July 2025, a group of people detonated explosives and destroyed property at the ICE Prairieland Detention Facility in Alvarado, Texas, an incident that resulted in one officer being shot in the neck and nine people being arrested and charged with domestic terrorism. It was revealed during the trial, reports 404 Media, that the FBI was able to extract Signal’s private messages, which were used as evidence, from the iPhone’s notification database.

An FBI special agent testified that the Signal app had already been removed from the phone while the FBI was looking at it. A witness in this testimony told 404 Media that the messages will disappear, which is part of the app. The app successfully deleted the message, but the iPhone caught it.

This is a big deal, because Flawless Private Messenger is an encrypted messaging service, and messages sent through the service should not be visible if the app is removed from the phone. The FBI was able to extract the data because the messages were displayed through the iPhone’s notification system, which stored those messages in the phone’s internal database.

Representatives for Signal, Apple and the FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The loophole poses a security concern for iPhone owners who think their messages are private if they use an encrypted messaging service, and according to John Davisson, deputy director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, there’s no clear reason why those messages should be there after the app is removed.

“Someone who deletes a messaging app reasonably expects that their messages won’t be permanent or discoverable if the device falls into untrusted hands,” Davisson told CNET in an email. “Apple owes it to the public to fix this problem, and developers should consider warning their users of the vulnerability until that happens.”

All nine defendants in the case were found guilty in mid-March of charges ranging from aiding and abetting domestic terrorism to attempted murder.

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How to protect your privacy

Signal has a setting that prevents this problem from happening to others. You choose not to show any information in the app notifications, so that if they are stored on the iPhone, they can be released later by the authorities. If you want your messages to really disappear, this is the step to take.

To do this, turn on Signal and take the following steps. They should be the same on Android and iOS.

• Open the Settings menu and navigate to Notices.
• Find out where it says Show and change to that setting No name or message.

That’s the whole process. Once that setting is set, you’ll still get push notifications, but the notification won’t show who sent the message or what the message is. You’ll have to open the app every time to reply to messages, but this ensures that messages aren’t stored on the iPhone’s internal storage forever, ready to be retrieved by someone you trust.

“In our Surveillance Self-Defense Guide, we advise users to check the settings of their secure messaging tools and change them according to their security needs,” said Thorin Klosowski, security and privacy activist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Signal has the option to control what (if anything) is shown in notifications, and in some apps, you may need to go into the notification settings in general.”