A few months ago, we echoed a piece of news, in which it was stated, and Apple confirmed it, that all the data of users who use iCloud through Apple devices, had to be available in China, due to a new law that the government of the country had approved.
Apple tried to calm its customers by stating that even though the data is in the country, the encryption keys are not found in the countryTherefore, the Chinese authorities cannot access the data at any time. Apple hired the services of a local company to store the data, GCBD, since it does not have data centers in the country.
China Telecom, has announced through WeChat, that it has partnered with Guuizhou-Cloud Big Data (GCBD) to migrate all the data it stores from iCloud to its servers located in Tinayi, a news that Apple has confirmed to TechCruch. If the decision to opt for GCBD, a company has ties with the Chinese government, already caused unrest among users, this company's decision to migrate to China Telecom, a company run directly by the government, is even worse.
ICloud data stored on Chinese servers include emails, text messages and the encryption keys that protect them. Users who did not want their data to be stored on the GCBD servers had the only option to close their iCloud account, which makes it impossible to use their devices or select a country other than China in their account data.
Defenders of human rights and privacy raised their voices and criticized Apple's decision by trusting this company, questioning whether it would be able to maintain and protect customer privacy under new Chinese laws. At the time, Apple claimed that they fought to keep iCloud data out of the law, but as we have seen, the company was unsuccessful in their attempt.
In addition, Apple assured that no back doors had been created for the government to access the data and that the encryption keys were still under the control of Apple, not the Chinese government. What is clear is that Apple is a business and that China is one of the countries that generates the most money for the company, so if the government tells it to jump rope with one foot, Apple will do so without question, leaving privacy aside.
By that rule of three, just like you a company is paying you to speak ill of Apple and if they tell you to jump rope on the limp, then you also do it right?