iMessage Surveillance

With 1.3 billion users, iMessage is one of the more popular messaging apps. When an employee of a regulated company uses iMessage to conduct business-related conversations with a client, the company is responsible for ensuring that these conversations are monitored and stored in accordance with regulations.   

How Can Companies Engage in iMessage Surveillance?

In order to surveil employee usage of iMessage, companies have two options. They can either use iCloud’s backup feature or another third-party tool to archive and download iMessages stored on employees’ phones.

The downside of using iCloud backup is the lack of granular control that the company has over the data. It is also difficult to scale and raises some privacy concerns. A better option, especially for companies in highly regulated industries, is to use a third-party solution specifically designed to capture and archive communications, including those sent via iMessage. 

Is iMessage Surveillance a Violation of Employee Privacy?

iMessage surveillance, along with all communication monitoring, must walk the fine line between complying with regulations and protecting employee and client privacy. 

This becomes even more complicated when employees use their personal devices for work-related conversations, and companies need to differentiate between business-related messages that need to be captured and personal messages that must be left alone.

Companies must make their policies very clear to employees so that they understand that any business-related conversations, regardless of the platform or device used, are the company’s property and will be monitored, captured, and stored in accordance with regulations.

The Consequences of Non-Compliance with iMessage Surveillance

When companies fail to comply with communication-related regulations, they are subject to hefty fines. For example, while Deloitte had a communication capture solution in place, the one they used was incompatible with iMessage. As a result, the company decided to ban employees from using iMessage. Unfortunately for Deloitte, employees continued using iMessage despite the company not taking any action to prevent it.

Although the discrepancy was not discovered by the authorities for a few years, FINRA fined Deloitte $200,000 in 2023. 

How LeapXpert Can Help

In March 2022, LeapXpert became the first solution to include iMessage in the suite of messaging apps the platform is able to monitor. With LeapXpert, businesses can communicate with their clients using the messaging app of the client’s choice, now including iMessage. All business-related conversations that take place over the app are automatically captured and archived, ready to be made accessible to regulators should the need arise. 

Book a demo to learn more.