Apple Inc stores data from its Chinese customers on servers owned by a Chinese state-owned company, potentially making it easy for Beijing to gain access to the information, the New York Times has reported.
The data deal, in response to a 2017 Chinese law, is one of several concessions to the government that the iPhone maker has made over the past five years to do business in China, the Times said on Monday, citing internal company documents and interviews with current and former employees, as well as cybersecurity experts.
The policy for Chinese consumers stands in contrast with tougher privacy standards for US users, the report said.
The Times quoted that company as saying that it followed the laws in China and did everything it could to keep the data of customers safe.
“We have never compromised the security of our users or their data in China, or anywhere we operate,” the company said.
Human rights advocates and some lawmakers have criticized Apple for the steps it takes, including censoring content, to keep from running afoul of regulations that control the dissemination of information inside China.
US Senator Marsha Blackburn said in a statement on Monday: “Apple is giving Beijing the keys to peer into the lives of millions of Chinese users. By doing so, Apple is possibly putting the lives of many, including human rights activists, at risk.”
“Users of Apple products were surely sold the devices based on the company’s commitment to the privacy of their data,” Public Knowledge government affairs director Greg Guice said in a statement. “We see now, that was an illusion. China’s willingness to invade their citizens’ privacy by forcing companies operating within their borders to hand over data is a sad, but an expected, turn of events.”
In December last year, US Representative Ken Buck chastised Apple over reports that the company had removed certain video games from its platform in China.
In 2017, Apple said that it would establish a data center in China to speed up services such as iCloud for local users and abide by laws that require global companies to store information within the country.
The company at the time said that it would construct and operate the data center in partnership with an entity cofounded by Guizhou Province.
Apple also blocks apps from its App Store in China that managers worry could generate criticism and pushback from Chinese authorities, the New York Times reported.
Tens of thousands of apps have disappeared from Apple’s Chinese App Store over the past several years, more than previously known, the Times said.
Apple has made large-scale purges of content in the past, researchers said.
The company removed more than 30,000 apps, 90 percent of them games, from its iPhone App Store in China, Qimai Research Institute said in August.
The Times said that an Apple employee at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, was fired for letting an app from exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui (郭文貴), which broadcast claims of corruption in the Chinese Communist Party, appear on the App Store in China.
Apple denied the firing was related to the app issue, the Times said, adding that the employee has sued the company.
Apple’s ties to China go back decades. Much of the company’s supply chain is located in China, where many of its products are manufactured and assembled.
The company generated more than US$40 billion, or almost 15 percent of total sales, in Greater China during its last fiscal year, company data showed — Apple’s “Greater China” region includes Taiwan, China and Hong Kong.
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