Apple Patches iOS Bug That Let FBI Recover Deleted Signal Messages via Retained Notifications

Apple released out-of-band security updates for iOS and iPadOS to fix a Notification Services flaw where notifications marked for deletion remained stored on-device rather than being purged. The bug enabled law enforcement to recover deleted Signal messages by accessing the retained notification data, undermining the deletion guarantees that end-to-end encrypted messaging apps rely on.

The flaw affects the OS-level handling of ephemeral notification content, not Signal itself. Users should update to the latest iOS and iPadOS versions immediately. Developers building privacy-sensitive apps that depend on notification deletion semantics should verify behavior on updated devices.