Rogue Apple

China's state-owned Telecom company is now storing iCloud data. iPhone users aren't excited about it.

BY DANIEL VAN BOOM

There are over 130 million iPhone users in China, and their data is now being stored by a Chinese government-run company.
China Telecom, a state-owned carrier in China, is now in control of storing Chinese users' iCloud data, it announced on Tuesday. 

It takes this duty from Guizhou-Cloud Big Data, who controversially gained operation control over Apple's iCloud business in February.
CNET has reached out to Apple for comment. 

The company confirmed the change to Tech Crunch.
The move, which involves pictures, texts, notes and calendar data being stored by a state-owned business, was praised by state media. 

"China Telecom will manage and monitor user data, and Apple needs Chinese local operators to provide network services," Xiang Ligang, identified as an "industry expert," told the state-run Global Times.
Chinese consumers are being sold on faster speeds and better connectivity, but this was greeted with suspicion by users on Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter. 

"They're going to steal my privacy," one user wrote, while another said "Big brother said, privacy in exchange for efficiency and safety."
However, human rights advocates criticised Apple's February move to give operational power to Guizhou-Cloud Big Data, the company who passed the job onto China Telecom.
"By handing over its China iCloud service to a local company without sufficient safeguards, the Chinese authorities now have unfettered access to all Apple's customers' iCloud data," said Nicholas Bequelin, East Asia director at Amnesty International, in a statement back in February.
In February, Apple started storing encryption keys for iCloud data in China with a third-party company, Guizhou Cloud Big Data.

Apple was very clear about the change, saying in a statement: "China recently enacted laws requiring that cloud services offered to their citizens be operated by Chinese companies and that customers' data be stored in the country. Our choice was to offer iCloud under the new laws or discontinue offering the service. We elected to continue offering iCloud," Apple said.
It comes months after ZTE, a Chinese telecom company and phone maker, was almost dealt a death blow by the US Department of Commerce. 

Stemming out of ZTE selling equipment with US technology to Iran and Korea, the company was banned from dealing with US companies, including chipmaker Qualcomm, for seven years. 

The ban was ultimately lifted, though ZTE was fined $1 billion.

The Manchurian Apple

Campaign targets Apple over privacy betrayal for Chinese iCloud users

Amnesty International

Amnesty International is launching a new social media campaign targeting Apple over its betrayal of millions of Chinese iCloud users by recklessly making their personal data vulnerable to the arbitrary scrutiny of the Chinese government.

Amnesty is urging Apple CEO Tim Cook not sell out iCloud users in China.
In a nod to Apple’s iconic ‘1984’ advert, the campaign takes an Orwellian theme with the line “All Apple users are equal but some are less equal than others”. 

It launches as the tech company’s chief executive, Tim Cook, touches down in Beijing to co-chair a Chinese business forum.
“Tim Cook is not being upfront with Apple’s Chinese users when insisting that their private data will always be secure. Apple’s pursuit of profits has left Chinese iCloud users facing huge new privacy risks,” said Nicholas Bequelin, East Asia Director at Amnesty International.
“Apple’s influential ‘1984’ ad challenged a dystopian future but in 2018 the company is now helping to create one. Tim Cook preaches the importance of privacy but for Apple’s Chinese customers’ these commitments are meaningless. It is pure doublethink.”
“By handing over its China iCloud service to a local company without sufficient safeguards, the Chinese authorities now have unfettered access to all Apple’s Chinese customers’ iCloud data. Apple knows it, yet has not warned its customers in China of the risks.”

On 28 February, Apple transferred the operation of its iCloud service for Chinese users to Guizhou-Cloud Big Data. 

The move affects any photos, documents, contacts, messages and other user data and content that Chinese users store on Apple’s cloud-based servers.
On 1 February, Amnesty International wrote to Apple raising our concerns about the changes and asked the company to provide further information. 

Apple has yet to respond to the request. 

Privacy threat
New Chinese legislation enacted in 2017 requires cloud services to be operated by Chinese companies, meaning companies like Apple must either lease server space inside China or establish joint ventures with Chinese partners.
Chinese domestic law gives the government unrestricted access to user data stored inside China without adequate protection for users’ rights to privacy, freedom of expression or other basic human rights.
As a result, Chinese internet users can face arrest and imprisonment for merely expressing, communicating or accessing information and ideas the authorities do not approve of.
Amnesty’s online campaign urges consumers to tell Tim Cook to reject double standards when it comes to privacy for Apple’s Chinese customers, whose personal data is now at risk of ending up in the hands of the government.

Think Different
Apple’s chief executive will be in Beijing on 24-26 March to co-chair the China Development Forum, which aims to foster relationships between the Chinese government and global business leaders. 

Apple reported record revenues of US$17.9 billion for Greater China in the last quarter.
“While Apple may claim it treats its customers equally, some are less equal than others. Profits should never threaten privacy. It’s time for Apple to Think Different when it comes to the privacy of its millions of Chinese customers,” said Nicholas Bequelin.
“Apple needs to be much more transparent about the risks to privacy posed by recent changes to the iCloud service in China.”

1984
Directed by Ridley Scott, Apple’s 1984 advert of the same year is considered to be one of the greatest TV commercials of all time. 

Scores of grey clad clones are fixated on a giant screen as Big Brother celebrates “Information Purification Directives”. 

An athletic woman in bright clothes storms past troops to take a sledge-hammer to the screen unleashing an explosion. 

A voice over says "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984.'"

Rotten Apple

Apple under fire for moving iCloud data to China: Apple's latest move has privacy advocates and human rights groups worried.

by Sherisse Pham

The U.S. company is moving iCloud accounts registered in mainland China to state-run Chinese servers on Wednesday along with the digital keys needed to unlock them.
"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 warned in a statement Tuesday.
The criticism highlights the tradeoffs major international companies are making in order to do business in China, which is a huge market and vital manufacturing base for Apple.
In the past, if Chinese authorities wanted to access Apple's user data, they had to go through an international legal process and comply with U.S. laws on user rights, according to Ronald Deibert, director of the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, which studies the intersection of digital policy and human rights.
"They will no longer have to do so if iCloud and cryptographic keys are located in China's jurisdiction," he told CNNMoney.
The company taking over Apple's Chinese iCloud operations is Guizhou-Cloud Big Data (GCBD), which is owned by the government of Guizhou province. 

GCBD did not respond to requests for comment.
The change only affects iCloud accounts that are registered in mainland China.
Apple made the move to comply with China's latest regulations on cloud services. 

A controversial cybersecurity law, which went into effect last June, requires companies to keep all data in the country. 

Beijing has said the measures are necessary to help prevent crime and terrorism, and protect Chinese citizens' privacy.
The problem with Chinese cybersecurity laws, Deibert said, is that they also require companies operating in China "to turn over user data to state authorities on demand -- Apple now included."
Other big U.S. tech companies have had to take similar steps -- Amazon and Microsoft also struck partnerships with Chinese companies to operate their cloud services in the country.
"Our choice was to offer iCloud under the new laws or discontinue offering the service," an Apple spokesman told CNN. 

The company decided to keep iCloud in China, because cutting it off "would result in a bad user experience and less data security and privacy for our Chinese customers," he said.
Apple users typically use iCloud to store data such as music, photos and contacts.
That information can be extremely sensitive. 

Earlier this month, Reporters Without Borders urged China-based journalists to change the country associated with their iCloud accounts -- which is an option for non-Chinese citizens, according to Apple -- or to close them down entirely.
Human rights groups also highlighted the difficult ethical positions Apple could find itself in under the new iCloud arrangement in China.
The company has fought for privacy rights in the Unites States. 

It publicly opposed a judge's order to break into the iPhone of one of the terrorists who carried out the deadly attack in San Bernardino in December 2016, calling the directive "an overreach by the US government."
At the time, CEO Tim Cook pretentiously said complying with the order would have required Apple to build "a backdoor to the iPhone ... something we consider too dangerous to create."
Human Rights Watch questioned whether the company would take similar steps to try to protect users' iCloud information in China, where similar privacy rights don't exist.
"Will Apple challenge laws adopted by the Chinese government that give authorities vast access to that data, especially with respect to encrypted keys that authorities will likely demand?" asked Sophie Richardson, China director for Human Rights Watch.

Apple declined to answer that question directly,.
"Apple has not created nor were we requested to create any backdoors and Apple will continue to retain control over the encryption keys to iCloud data," the Apple spokesman said.
Rights groups and privacy advocates are not convinced.
"China is an authoritarian country with a long track record of problematic human rights abuses, and extensive censorship and surveillance practices," Deibert said.
Apple users in China should take "extra and possibly inconvenient precautions not to store sensitive data on Apple's iCloud," he advised.
Most of those users have already accepted the new status quo, according to Apple. 

So far, more than 99.9% of iCloud users in China have chosen to continue using the service, the Apple spokesman said.

Tech Quisling

Reporters in China should close iCloud accounts to avoid surveillance, says press watchdog
By Shannon Liao

In light of Apple’s intentions to outsource Chinese iCloud operations to a firm with ties to the local government at the end of the month, French nonprofit Reporters Without Borders — otherwise known as Reporters Sans Frontières or RSF — is telling journalists to take security precautions.
The nonprofit said in a post on Monday that members of the media who have Apple iCloud accounts in China should either move or close their accounts before the deadline, or face “control of their data [passing] to the Chinese state.” 

iCloud operations in China will be taken over by Guizhou-Cloud Big Data (GCBD), which is supervised by a board run by government-owned businesses.
However, this is the second time RSF has recently expressed concern over Apple’s compliance with the Chinese government. 

In August, the organization commented on news that VPNs would be withdrawn from Apple’s Chinese App Store since the government considers them illegal. 

RSF has expressed a dark outlook on Apple’s partnership with GCBD, noting how Apple’s lawyers have added a clause in the Chinese terms that both Apple and GCBD may access all user data.

The Manchurian Apple

Tech Quisling: Apple’s China iCloud data migration sweeps up international user accounts
By Jon Russell

Apple’s plan to migrate China-based iCloud user accounts to a local host on Chinese soil is already running into controversy after the iPhone-maker appeared included accounts registered overseas in the data.

China-based users were informed of the upcoming migration yesterday, which Apple said “will allow us improve the speed and reliability of our iCloud services products while also complying with newly passed regulations that cloud services be operated by Chinese companies.”
However, after talking to a number of users, we found that Apple has included iCloud accounts that were opened in the U.S., are paid for using U.S. dollars and/or are connected to U.S.-based App Store accounts in the data that will be handled by local partner Guizhou-Cloud Big Data (GCBD) from February 28.
Apple has given China-based users the option to delete their data, but there is no opt out that allows them to have it stored elsewhere.
That has concerned users who are uneasy that the data migration is a sign of closer ties with the Chinese government, particularly since GCBD is owned by the Guizhou provincial government.

When asked for comment, Apple pointed TechCrunch to its terms and conditions site which explains that it is migrating iCloud accounts based on their location.
The operation of iCloud services associated with Apple IDs that have China in their country or region setting will be subject to this transition.
You will be notified of this transition via email and notifications on your devices.
You don’t need to take any further action and can keep using iCloud in China.
After February 28, 2018, you will need to agree to the terms and conditions of iCloud operated by GCBD to keep using iCloud in China.
However, TechCrunch found instances of iCloud accounts registered overseas that were part of the migration.
One user did find an apparent opt-out.
That requires the user switching their iCloud account back to China, then signing out of all devices. They then switch their phone and iCloud settings to the U.S. and then, upon signing back into iCloud, their account will (seemingly) not be part of the migration.
Opting out might be a wise-move, as onlookers voice concern that a government-owned company is directly involved in storing user data.
“The biggest questions, not answered in the T&Cs are: What will Apple do when the Chinese authorities request a backdoor to access data that is encrypted? Will they continue to adhere to local laws and regulations and submit to the request? Or are they leaving this decision squarely in the hands of GCBD, their local partner?” Charlie Smith, a pseudonymous founder of censorship monitoring site Great Fire, told TechCrunch via an emailed statement.
The data change, which was originally announced last year, follows Apple’s decision to ban VPNs from the Chinese version of the App Store in July.
The U.S. firm later clarified that it was required to follow local laws on the matter — China has been battling against VPNs in recent years.
Apple wouldn’t be the first U.S. tech firm to kowtow to China’s despots.
LinkedIn introduced restrictions on content for users in China when it launched a local service, but that included international accounts that were active in China.
Similarly, international content was also found to have been censored from users in China.