Apple iCloud data and their encryption keys in China now stored by state-owned company
Apple iCloud data in China now stored by state-owned
company
Chinese state-owned China Telecom will now store all
Apple's iCloud data and encryption keys belonging to Chinese citizens within
its borders.
BY MATT BINDER July 18, 2018
A state-owned telecommunications company in China now
stores the iCloud data for Apple’s China-based users. This is really bad news
for dissidents and critics of the government.
In February, Apple caused an uproar when it announced it
would be moving Chinese users’ iCloud accounts — and their encryption keys — to
a China-based server company Guizhou-Cloud Big Data. Human rights advocates
warned this move would be dangerous, especially so for Chinese dissidents.
Apple’s response was that it simply had no choice but to comply if it wanted to
continue providing its iCloud service to Chinese customers.
Fast forward to today: China Telecom, a government owned
telco, is taking over the iCloud data from Guizhou-Cloud Big Data. This
essentially means that a state-owned
firm now has access to all the iCloud data China-based users store, such as
photos, notes, emails, and text messages.
Chinese state-run media is heralding the move as a win
for consumers, but Chinese citizens have been extremely condemnatory of the
decision. On Weibo, China’s Twitter clone, the conversation about the iCloud
data has mostly centered around concern over censorship and users’ privacy.
Previously, in order to keep doing business in China,
Apple had to store it’s iCloud data for Chinese users on servers within the
country. Apple made the move and signed a deal with Guizhou-Cloud Big Data in
February in order to comply with Chinese law that made such a decision a
requirement. That month, Apple issued a statement:
"China recently enacted laws requiring that cloud
services offered to their citizens be operated by Chinese companies and that
Chinese customers' data be stored in the country. While we advocated against
iCloud being subject to these laws, we were ultimately unsuccessful. Our choice
was to offer iCloud under the new laws or discontinue offering the service. We
elected to continue offering iCloud as we felt that discontinuing the service
would result in a bad user experience and less data security and privacy for
our Chinese customers."
Furthermore, Apple tried to calm fears by pointing out
that while the data is stored with a China-based company, the company still
controlled the encryption keys to each account. They reiterated that no special
deal was made to provide access to the Chinese government.
Human rights groups remained highly critical of the
decision. At the time, Amnesty International said in a statement:
"The changes being made to iCloud are the latest
indication that China's repressive legal environment is making it difficult for
Apple to uphold its commitments to user privacy and security."
Amnesty International pointed out in their statement on
the original iCloud data move that China’s laws give its government “virtually
unfettered access” to data stored within the country. If China’s government
approaches a service provider looking for a users data to aid in an
investigation, there’s very little recourse for the company to refuse handing
over the information. Now with the iCloud info in state-owned hands, China’s
government will already have the access to users’ data.
So, it may finally be time for concerned Chinese citizens
to stop using Apple iCloud.
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