The security and privacy are very important aspects of communication. Many technologies have been developed to keeping private messages secure while being transmitted from the sender to the receiver. However, the privacy of the messages can be compromised by notifications of the messages at the receiver. For example, a third party may see a visual notification of private text message displayed on a receiving device, such as a smart phone. Provided herein is an apparatus that receives a message, determines a privacy level of the message, selects a mode of notification of the message based on the determined privacy level of the message, and performs a notification action based on the selected mode of notification.