Google has announced that it intends to add support for Message Layer Security (MLS) to its Messages service for Android and open source implementation of the specification.
“Most modern consumer messaging platforms (including Google Messages) support end-to-end encryption, but users today are limited to communicating with contacts who use the same platform,” Giles Hogben, privacy engineering director at Google, said. “This is why Google is strongly supportive of regulatory efforts that require interoperability for large end-to-end messaging platforms.”
The development comes as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) released the core specification of the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol as a Request for Comments (RFC 9420).
