According to the Financial Times, Apple has admitted to storing personal data of users in China using China Mobile servers. The Cupertino-based company reassured the public that they take the privacy of its Chinese users seriously and that all data were encrypted and were stored locally only to improve the performance of its online services.
“Technology companies seek to position data centres as close to their customers as possible because shorter distances mean faster service speeds,” the report explains.
This move could also allay privacy fears by storing the data locally. Apple was recently accused by the Chinese state media of tracking its customers’ locations and presented a security risk. The company later denied these accusations in a statement posted on their website.
“Outsourcing some of its iCloud storage needs in China will definitely help with bandwidth, and could improve the speed and reliability of the service for the growing number of users Apple is building up in China,” Darrell Etherington writes for TechCrunch. “But the work this deal can do in terms of winning over some support from authorities in China is much more valuable to Apple in terms of its long-term goals in the country, which continues to be an area of key growth for its device sales.”
