Following in the footsteps of Facebook, which revealed last week that the US government had sought access to up to 19,000 user accounts on the social media site under the infamous Prism programme, the Cupertino-based Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has responded to the explosion in interest in the covert surveillance program with its own set of data.
“We have been authorized to share some of that data, and we are providing it here in the interest of transparency,” Apple said in a media statement issued yesterday. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares were up by about 1.85 per cent at 3.55pm ET (11.55pm UAE time) on Monday in the first trading session after Apple made the announcement.
“From December 1, 2012 to May 31, 2013, Apple received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from US law enforcement for customer data. Between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in those requests, which came from federal, state and local authorities and included both criminal investigations and national security matters,” the company has revealed.
That’s up to 10,000 accounts in six months, and only recently did Apple clearly state that it had never heard of the government’s Prism program. In fact, that might be true – it might not have known the official name of the programme under which it was sharing information with the government, but it did receive requests for data-sharing, and maybe should have owned up a tad earlier, before others did.
“Two weeks ago, when technology companies were accused of indiscriminately sharing customer data with government agencies, Apple issued a clear response: We first heard of the government’s “Prism” program when news organizations asked us about it on June 6. We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer content must get a court order,” the iPhone-maker says in its latest statement.
The company has also now revealed the kinds of data-sharing requests it receives. “The most common form of request comes from police investigating robberies and other crimes, searching for missing children, trying to locate a patient with Alzheimer’s disease, or hoping to prevent a suicide,” it says.
That’s quite understandable, and we’re sure there’s not much to hide in those cases.
“Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfil it,” Apple insists.
The company further maintains that it “has always placed a priority on protecting our customers’ personal data, and we don’t collect or maintain a mountain of personal details about our customers in the first place. There are certain categories of information which we do not provide to law enforcement or any other group because we choose not to retain it.”
What kinds if information? “For example, conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them. Apple cannot decrypt that data. Similarly, we do not store data related to customers’ location, Map searches or Siri requests in any identifiable form,” it discloses.
The move to share this information comes in response to media reports that Facebook, along with eight other major tech companies, has been providing the National Security Agency access to data on its servers through a program called ‘Prism.’
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