TLDR: signal content in Apple notification can be retrieved even after signal app deletion.
I saw from this reddit thread: Signal messages retrieved from iPhone after uninstalling app. : signal
Referencing this news article: Pretti Killing May Affect ICE Prairieland “Antifa Cell” Terrorism Trial
The mention of signal is in court documents here: March 10: Federal Trial Day 12 - Support the Prairieland Defendants
Signal chat evidence from Sharp’s device (Exhibit 158):
Messages were recovered from Sharp’s phone through Apple’s internal notification storage — Signal had been removed, but incoming notifications were preserved in internal memory. Only incoming messages were captured (no outgoing).
Does that actually prevent the app from sending the content through Apple’s servers or does it just prevent iOS from showing it in the notification area?
The only way apple is seeing it is when the notification is displayed. It only sees the contents of the notification itself. So it would still see who sent you a message, but it wouldn’t say what it was