By:
iPadfanzz Editor on June 17, 2013
Apple has issued a public statement regarding customer privacy, following accusations that it is involved in a US government-run PRISM program that offers up user data without warrant.
In the statement Apple said it had never ever heard of the NSA snooping scheme prior to being asked about it by news organizations. Apple’s statement elaborates on how and when it cooperates with U.S. law enforcement agencies seeking private data about its customers.
Like other companies that have been accused of PRISM involvement, Apple says that it asked the government for permission to report how many requests it receives related to national security and how it handles them.
Earlier this month, The Guardian and Washington Post revealed the existence of the US government's PRISM program, which gave the NSA access to user data held on the servers of tech firms including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, and Apple. Following the disclosure the tech companies have been under pressure to release the release about the data passed to the National Security Agency.
The NSA later confirmed the existence of the surveillance scheme as well as a separate phone records programme which it said had helped it thwart terrorist plots in the US and more than 20 other countries.
Earlier, Facebook and Microsoft announced they had been given permission to reveal the number of data requests from US officials in aggregate, and Apple has now followed with its own statement.
Aggregated numbers
Microsoft said it received between 6,000 and 7,000 requests from US government agencies affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 customer accounts.
Facebook said it received between 9,000 and 10,000 requests covering between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts.
Google has said that over the course of 2012 it received between zero and 999 National Security Letters - foreign intelligence-related requests from the FBI involving US citizens which are distinct from the agency's investigations into other criminal, civil or administrative matters.
Below is the statement in full.
Apple’s Commitment to Customer Privacy
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.
Like several other companies, we have asked the U.S. government for permission to report how many requests we receive related to national security and how we handle them. We have been authorized to share some of that data, and we are providing it here in the interest of transparency.
From December 1, 2012 to May 31, 2013, Apple received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from U.S. 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 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.
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 fulfill it.
Apple 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.
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.
We will continue to work hard to strike the right balance between fulfilling our legal responsibilities and protecting our customers’ privacy as they expect and deserve.
