Groups Worry as Apple Moves iCloud Data to State-Owned Chinese Servers

Apple on Wednesday is officially moving iCloud accounts belonging to Chinese users to state-run servers in the country, worrying both human rights groups and digital privacy advocates.

The Chinese iCloud accounts — and the encryption keys needed to unlock them — are being transferred from a hosting service in the U.S. to servers owned and operated by Guizhou-Cloud Big Data (GCBD), a firm run by the provincial government of Guizhou, China.

The move is being made in order to comply with the latest set of cybersecurity laws enacted in China, which require foreign firms to store user data locally within the country. But Apple’s move has some groups concerned.

“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 commitment to user privacy and security,” Amnesty International, a human rights NGO, said in a statement Tuesday.

The new cybersecurity laws only affect iCloud accounts belonging to users in mainland China.

Apple has long been committed to protecting its users’ digital privacy. That famously peaked in a dustup with the FBI following its refusal to create a backdoor for iPhones. But some groups questioned whether Apple will stand its ground on privacy and user security issues in China, where U.S.-style privacy rights don’t exist.

But the move in China highlights the compromises that many companies have to take in order to do business within the country, CNN Tech reported. China is a critical region for tech firms, and especially for Apple. Not only is it the largest smartphone market in the world, but it is also the epicenter of Apple’s large supply and assembly chain.

Apple maintains that it tried to fight the change. “While we advocated against iCloud being subject to these laws, we were ultimately unsuccessful,” Apple wrote in a statement, adding that its only choices were to comply with the new laws or discontinue iCloud in China entirely.

One of the concerns is that Chinese authorities might now have easy access to a user’s sensitive data. Previously, government entities in China had to go through international legal processes and comply with U.S. law. That’s no longer the case. But, for its part, Apple maintained that it would retain control over iCloud encryption keys in China.

Human rights groups aren’t convinced, however. “China is an authoritarian country with a long track record of problematic human rights abuses, and extensive censorship and surveillance practices,” Citizen Lab Director Ronald Deibert told CNN. Deibert advised Chinese users to refrain from storing sensitive data in iCloud moving forward.

An Apple spokesperson said that concerned users in China may choose to close their iCloud accounts in order to keep their data off of GCBD’s servers. But the same spokesperson noted that 99.9 percent of Chinese iCloud users have decided to keep using the service.