According to a report released by the New York Times on 17th May 2021, the tech giant, Apple is under a scrutiny process once again for the exceptions it made for the users in China. The report broadly discussed the relationship of Chinese government with Apple. The report also cited internal documents of the company as well as the interviews of 17 current and former employees of Apple.
Some of the major details covered by the report included Apple complying with the local regulations in China related to the strong user data ln local servers. Some of the claims being raised in the report has been denied by Apple.
While moving the Chinese user data to the local servers, Apple promised that the data will be kept safe and will be managed with company’s strict privacy approach. The new report said that Apple has largely surrendered itself to the Chinese government not only this but it also claimed that in the data centers, Apple’s compromises have made it impossible for the company to hold the Chinese government from gaining access to the personal emails, documents, files, picture, personal contacts and the location of millions of Chinese users.
The main aspect in the article is the discussion where the encryption keys that can unlock the user data are kept. Initially Apple demanded to keep the keys in the United States. In 2017, when law went into effect, the location of the keys was left vague intentionally and 8 months later, the keys were stored in China.
According to two employees, the iCloud data in China is vulnerable to the Chinese government because of the series of compromises made by Apple to meet the demands. These digital keys that can decrypt the iCloud data are kept in specialized devices called hardware security modules made by French technology company, Thales.
According to the report, the keys needed to unlock the data are stored securely and with this statement, it does not give any evidence that the data was accessed by the Chinese government. This idea was also denied by Apple that the company compromised its users privacy. The company release a statement in which it said that it followed the laws in China and did everything to keep the data of their users safe and didn’t compromise on user privacy. Spokesperson for Apple also added that company still controls the keys that protects the data of Chinese users and the technology it used here in China is the most advanced encryption technology than any other country.
Apple further added that its Chines data centers features their latest protection and the company is busy working against a June 2021 deadline to store data on new Chinese data servers. Apple has tried to separate Chinese servers from remaining iCloud servers according to the documents provided. These Chinese servers will be handled and monitored separately from all other networks. This measure is to prevent any security breach in China from spreading to the other data centers of Apple. Apple said that the reason for isolating Chinese servers is because they are owned by the Chinese government and this is why all the third parties are kept disconnected from the internal network.
Read next: After the latest update of iOS 14.5 that might affect the advertisement business of Google and Facebook, Apple has introduced its own paid ads unit to App Store search results
Some of the major details covered by the report included Apple complying with the local regulations in China related to the strong user data ln local servers. Some of the claims being raised in the report has been denied by Apple.
While moving the Chinese user data to the local servers, Apple promised that the data will be kept safe and will be managed with company’s strict privacy approach. The new report said that Apple has largely surrendered itself to the Chinese government not only this but it also claimed that in the data centers, Apple’s compromises have made it impossible for the company to hold the Chinese government from gaining access to the personal emails, documents, files, picture, personal contacts and the location of millions of Chinese users.
The main aspect in the article is the discussion where the encryption keys that can unlock the user data are kept. Initially Apple demanded to keep the keys in the United States. In 2017, when law went into effect, the location of the keys was left vague intentionally and 8 months later, the keys were stored in China.
According to two employees, the iCloud data in China is vulnerable to the Chinese government because of the series of compromises made by Apple to meet the demands. These digital keys that can decrypt the iCloud data are kept in specialized devices called hardware security modules made by French technology company, Thales.
According to the report, the keys needed to unlock the data are stored securely and with this statement, it does not give any evidence that the data was accessed by the Chinese government. This idea was also denied by Apple that the company compromised its users privacy. The company release a statement in which it said that it followed the laws in China and did everything to keep the data of their users safe and didn’t compromise on user privacy. Spokesperson for Apple also added that company still controls the keys that protects the data of Chinese users and the technology it used here in China is the most advanced encryption technology than any other country.
Apple further added that its Chines data centers features their latest protection and the company is busy working against a June 2021 deadline to store data on new Chinese data servers. Apple has tried to separate Chinese servers from remaining iCloud servers according to the documents provided. These Chinese servers will be handled and monitored separately from all other networks. This measure is to prevent any security breach in China from spreading to the other data centers of Apple. Apple said that the reason for isolating Chinese servers is because they are owned by the Chinese government and this is why all the third parties are kept disconnected from the internal network.
Read next: After the latest update of iOS 14.5 that might affect the advertisement business of Google and Facebook, Apple has introduced its own paid ads unit to App Store search results
