[Product Update] RCS Archival is now available on managed Android devices
Rich Communication Services (RCS) is a significant upgrade that benefits businesses with enhanced security through end-to-end encryption and boosted employee productivity with features like read receipts, typing indicators, high-resolution file sharing without size limits, and seamless group chat management.
However, RCS encryption can present a challenge for regulatory compliance. To ensure companies can fully utilise these security and productivity benefits of Google Messages while meeting crucial record-keeping requirements, we are rolling out Android RCS Archival.
Feature benefits
This new capability streamlines message auditing by integrating directly with Google Messages, enabling third-party archival apps to capture all communications so that auditing is:
- Comprehensive: The archival app is notified on all message events, including when a message is sent, received, edited or deleted. This provides a complete audit trail that is also backward compatible with SMS and MMS.
- Reliable: Unlike previous methods, this is a built-in, Android-supported and maintained archival mechanism.
- Controlled: IT admins maintain full control over deployment and can easily enable or disable this feature, with employees receiving clear notification when archival is active.
Scope and implementation
Android RCS Archival is available on fully managed Android devices using Google Messages as the default messaging application.
For a full breakdown of the benefits of RCS archival, check out our keyword blog. For implementation details and configuring the policy, consult our Help Center article.