Apple rolled out a massive update to its operating system on Wednesday, along with a significant update to its privacy policy. Beginning with iOS 8, Apple says data on your device is kept private, even from the police.
“Security and privacy are fundamental to the design of all our hardware, software, and services, including iCloud and new services like Apple Pay,” CEO Tim Cook wrote in an open letter published concurrently with Apple’s new privacy policy.
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Before making it “absolutely clear that we have never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services,” Cook appears to single out Google, the company’s biggest competitor:
“Our business model is very straightforward: We sell great products. We don’t build a profile based on your email content or web browsing habits to sell to advertisers. We don’t ‘monetize’ the information you store on your iPhone or in iCloud. And we don’t read your email or your messages to get information to market to you.”
Cook’s letter also discussed the company’s plans to strengthen iCloud security. After the personal celebrity photo leak last month, hackers may be an even greater customer concern than government entities for the time being.
With iOS 7 and earlier, government entities were able to bring seized locked Apple devices to the company, where Apple could extract a significant amount of data. Apple’s updated privacy policy explains the changes made with the new operating system.
“On devices running iOS 8, your personal data such as photos, messages (including attachments), email, contacts, call history, iTunes content, notes, and reminders is placed under the protection of your passcode,” the privacy policy now reads.
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“Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data. So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.”
Photo by JD Hancock.
