Apple Now Encrypts Titles of Voice Memos Stored in iCloud on iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma for Added Privacy

Tuesday September 19, 2023 8:40 am PDT by Joe Rossignol

Starting on iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma, Apple encrypts the titles of Voice Memos stored in iCloud, in addition to the recordings themselves.

Voice Memos General Feature
As a result of this change, Apple says the titles of existing Voice Memos might only show the date and time of the recording on devices running older software versions.

Apple explains in a new support document:

Because of this additional encryption, when you update one of your Apple devices to iOS 17, iPadOS 17, or macOS Sonoma, your devices that you haven't yet updated—with older versions of Voice Memos—may display the date and time of the recording (for example, "2023-08-11T07:53:31Z") as the title, rather than the previous title of the recording.

Apple already encrypted Voice Memos recordings in transit and stores them in an encrypted format, according to the support document.

Related Roundups: iOS 17, iPadOS 17, macOS Sonoma

Tag: Voice Memos

Related Forums: iOS 17, iPadOS 17, macOS Sonoma

Top Rated Comments

antiprotest

6 days ago at 08:53 am

#$8Thu!@reZEMUn@FyPBy$N*R82wqUP9Du^@fuQ9ZpGAERU*KyD2%SLQdo#FGqgwRAonR9XijXmG@FdhZRLYW^%4wMFYKAb8F3fTuy^U&%EomgV6FqGjd5L#Z6iVu7*chywPCcKj6Qf4S9KFDf#*^QB25kpaeyufy9^Q%sx@aTen@FBzCTrWNu2%YBo4keRnKJSVNUG3SNHtiYuY48yG3Pm!z%4tdqABCwYpkYQVj^!Mix9LUC2St$*W45JUicCr

Wise words indeed.

Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)

klasma

6 days ago at 08:52 am

Encrypt everything!

Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)

jonnysods

6 days ago at 08:43 am

The more privacy features the better. I appreciate Apple more times on privacy than not. I know it’s not perfect.

Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)

6 days ago at 08:44 am

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

6 days ago at 10:32 am

I guess the private key is stored in the cloud then?

Nope: https://support.apple.com/guide/security/secure-keychain-syncing-sec0a319b35f/web
In particular: "Each item that’s synced is encrypted so that it can be decrypted only by a device within the user’s circle of trust; it can’t be decrypted by any other devices or by Apple."

Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)