Blockbuster report by The New York Times on Apple and Tim Cook gladly making endless concessions to please the Chinese government. Nothing in here is really new to most of us, but it’s startling to see it laid out in such detail, and sourced so well.
For instance, when it comes to Chinese people, privacy is apparently no longer a “fundamental human right“:
Inside, Apple was preparing to store the personal data of its Chinese customers on computer servers run by a state-owned Chinese firm.
Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has said the data is safe. But at the data center in Guiyang, which Apple hoped would be completed by next month, and another in the Inner Mongolia region, Apple has largely ceded control to the Chinese government.
Chinese state employees physically manage the computers. Apple abandoned the encryption technology it used elsewhere after China would not allow it. And the digital keys that unlock information on those computers are stored in the data centers they’re meant to secure.
This means zero privacy for Chinese Apple users, as Apple has pretty much ceded all control over this data to the Chinese government – so much so Apple’s employees aren’t even in the building, and Apple no longer has the encryption keys either.
And on top of this, it turns out Apple is so scared of offending the Chinese government, the company proactively censors applications and other content in the Chinese version of the App Store, removing, censoring, and blocking content even before the Chinese government asks for it.
“Apple has become a cog in the censorship machine that presents a government-controlled version of the internet,” said Nicholas Bequelin, Asia director for Amnesty International, the human rights group. “If you look at the behavior of the Chinese government, you don’t see any resistance from Apple — no history of standing up for the principles that Apple claims to be so attached to.”
Apple even fired an App Store reviewer because the reviewer approved an application that while not breaking a single rule, did offend the Chinese government. That is how far Apple is willing to go to please its Chinese government friends.
Apple isn’t merely beholden to China – it’s deeply, deeply afraid of China. How many more concessions is Tim Cook willing to make, and how many more Chinese rings is he willing to kiss?
This is a hard question. Allowing data to be shipped out of your country and stored on USA servers is not exactly ideal either.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/apple-complies-percent-us-government-requests-customer-data-2020-1
The reality is USA apple users really do have zero privacy from their government as well using apple cloud products. Most people using apple products who are not Chinese if the USA government wants to look at your stuff they can in most cases with out the apple staff saying anything.
The cloud storage problem of being not my computer needs to be taken way more serous-ally.
Remember apple and many other cloud service providers(google with android) don’t give users the right to choose country where their cloud data is in fact stored. This leads to china or usa or anyone else to be able todo negotiation with a single party for data access.
This cloud storage problem is not a China only problem. Lot of ways China mandating the data staying in China means the USA government cannot spy as simply on Chinese citizens.
Right to privacy in the cloud need to include Right to choose exactly what country and what laws my data is stored under.
oiaohm,
You’re right about that. However a bigger problem than where the data is located is that these companies are amassing privileged access to our devices and data in the first place. The media and public are very quick to admonish government censorship and government control over owners (…and with good reason), but all too often they completely overlook the central role that technology companies including Apple have played in enabling this kind of environment. Meanwhile the companies themselves pretend they’re on our side. Still, ultimately it is ignorant to blame the government while not also blaming the corporations that built the very groundwork that enables such effective authoritarian control over consumers. We knew this would happen and we have been warning against it for a long time, alas calling out such business practices has been practically futile. So we’re left helplessly watching as things like privacy and owner control continue getting worse.
“This means zero privacy for Chinese Apple users, ”
Only Thom will care and the Chinese users don’t care.
AER,
That’s totally false. State surveillance leads to political dissidents being prosecuted for their views and many are living in fear. I wish there was more I could do to help the Chinese. We see what’s happening in Hong Kong as their democracy is being stripped away before our very eyes, it is so repressive, The loss of human rights is one of the big tragedies of our time and having *our* technology being used to enable this is a damn shame. I really feel for them. Alas we in the west have turned a blind eye to it with our infatuation with cheap prices & the incessant drive for corporate profits at any cost.
Hong Kong was never a democracy. It was a colony ruled directly from Britain with minimal local political input.
Brisvegas,
It’s true they were never completely independent, but they did have democratic elections and an autonomous government. In the past couple of years Beijing has taken steps to stamp out all of Hong Kong’s autonomy and democratic elections.
There is no doubt the surveillance capabilities China acquires through tech companies is being used to subvert any and all democratic movements to compete against China’s communist party and criminally prosecute those who speak out against what’s happening. I find it quite troubling we in the west aren’t doing more to fight for human rights. Sure a lot of these events aren’t in our back yards, but 1) it doesn’t make it any less wrong, and 2) some day it could easily become a larger problem for our own democracy.
HK had a 48 member unelected Legislative Council that merely advised the British appointed Governor. The last Governor Chris Patten introduced some ‘democratic’ reforms which were primarily designed to frustrate the Chinese when they took over.
If you live in any English speaking country you are probably subjected to a far more onerous surveillance programme than the average Chinese person. You just don’t know about it. The ‘Five Eyes’ surveillance networks intercepts and analyses ALL electronic communications. You can be absolutely certain that the ‘secure’ Apple and Google servers in the US have been compromised by multiple hardware and software backdoors – probably all the way down to the disk microcontrollers. The optic fibre is tapped just outside the premises to intercept all network traffic. It is a federal crime to even confirm the existence of a backdoor or wiretap. {A well known free disk encryption programme was discontinued due to the discovery of backdoors.]
Google began as a DoD funded surveillance programme and Facebook was seed funded by In-Q-Tel the CIA venture capital arm.
Brisvegas,
I’m not talking about the British reign decades ago, I’m talking about the democratic elections that Hong Kong has had since then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_local_elections
Despite not being fully independent, Hong Kong had a lot of autonomy up until recent events where Beijing has taken over local government by force. Sure it may not have been ideal before, but it’d be silly for someone knowledgeable about current events to suggest things aren’t getting much worse for democracy there.
Yes there’s an increasing problem worldwide, but most people have legal rights and aren’t going to be imprisoned over things like free speech. Also take note that I have been criticizing companies strongly over their data collection practices, possibly more than anyone else here.