Apple is getting kudos galore after loudly and proudly touting the privacy it provides to its mobile customers with a new site. And it gets in a dig at its top competitor in the process.
As the company launches new products and services, and in the wake of the embarrassing leaks of nude celebrity photos, we’ve been hearing a lot from Apple CEO Tim Cook lately. (As we wrote this week, he was sure to tell Charlie Rose in an interview that Apple’s business model doesn’t rely on advertising and sharing user information with others. He also identified Google as the company’s top competitor. Android maker Google, of course, built its business on advertising.)
What’s got everyone so excited? With Apple iOS 8, its latest update to its mobile operating system, the texts, photos and other information stored on people’s iPhones and iPads (but not on iCloud) is locked by user passwords, and Apple says it doesn’t have the key. The company says this means it can’t turn over that information to the authorities, even those who have a warrant. This is the kind of stuff that gets people’s attention in the post-Edward Snowden world.
Privacy advocates are cheering the move. “Our lives are on our smartphones, and Apple is right to realize that users do not want to pay twice for products — with their money and with their privacy,” Nicole Ozer, an attorney with ACLU of Northern California, told Ars Technica.
Do people care? Will Apple’s touting its self-proclaimed privacy advantage over Google’s Android truly be an advantage?
Reaction from Chris Soghoian, technologist for the ACLU:
We’re getting really close to a point where big tech companies are going to compete on the anti-surveillance features in their products.
— Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian)
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But law enforcement and government officials are not truly out of luck if they want to access an iPhone or iPad user’s info. Wired’s Andy Greenberg cites an iOS forensic expert’s take on the whole thing. “In many cases, [Jonathan Zdziarski] points out, the cops can still grab and offload sensitive data from your locked iPhone without Apple’s help, even in iOS 8. All they need, he says, is your powered-on phone and access to a computer you’ve previously used to move data onto and off of it.” And there are other ways for the government to get call and texting information, including from wireless carriers, the Verge’s Chris Welch points out.
Photo: Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller announces new iPhone 6 models on Sept. 9, 2014, in Cupertino. The new phones run on iOS 8. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
