BEIJING (Reuters) – Apple said Friday it first began to store personal data of some users in China on servers in that country.
With this, Apple moves away from the policy of other technology companies, particularly Google, which has refused for a long time to build data centers in China for fear of censorship and respect for privacy .
Technology giant attributed the policy shift to an attempt to improve the speed and reliability of its iCloud service, which allows users to store pictures, emails and other data. Locate data centers as close as possible to the users means faster service.
The data is stored on servers provided by China Telecom, the third largest mobile operator in the country, Apple said in a statement.
“Apple security and user privacy is taken very seriously,” said the American group.
“We have added China Telecom to our list of providers of data centers to increase the bandwidth and improve performance for our customers in Mainland China. All data stored with our suppliers are encrypted. China Telecom not have access to content, “said Apple.
The encryption keys are stored outside and not be available to China Telecom, a person familiar with the situation said.
Apple claims to have devised ciphers for services like iMessage even the company itself can not unlock. But some experts have expressed skeptical that Apple can retain user data if the Chinese Government requests delivery.
“If we say that data is protected and secure is a bit misleading, because if you want to operate in China must comply with the requirements of the authorities,” said Jeremy Goldkorn, director of Danwei.com, firm research focused on Chinese media, Internet and consumers.
“On the other hand, if Chinese do not store user data in a Chinese server also at risk of having problems with the authorities,” he added.
Goldkorn added that the data stored in the United States are subject to similar American law, under which the government can go to court to demand the delivery of private data.
Some companies have chosen not to locate servers in China, where they would have to comply with local laws. Google and Microsoft have their servers to Gmail and Hotmail services in that country.
Google left China in 2010 and moved its services-including Islands Search engine to servers located in Hong Kong after refusing to comply with Chinese government censorship.
Yahoo was criticized in 2005 for delivering emails to Chinese authorities that led to the imprisonment of Shi Tao, a journalist who had leaked an internal censorship order that the Government had sent to Chinese media.
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