“IPhone Users are Digital Slaves to Apple,” – Telegram Founder

The creator of Telegram, Pável Dúrov, has dropped his opinions on a recent investigation by The New York Times that revealed that Apple not only stores the data of its Chinese users in the territory of the Asian giant, but also shares all that information at the request of the local authorities.

The Russian millionaire stated on his channel on the messaging platform that “it is sad, but not surprising” that the apple company “is involved in large-scale surveillance and censorship at the behest of China.” “Big tech companies often choose profit over freedom,” he added.

The entrepreneur stated that Apple’s business model is based on the sale of “overpriced and obsolete” hardware to users “locked in its ecosystem.”

“Every time I have to use an iPhone to test our iOS application, I feel like I have been taken back to the Middle Ages,” he noted, explaining that their 60 Hz panels are “no longer able to compete” with the 120 Hz ones of modern Android devices.

According to Dúrov, “owning an iPhone makes you a digital slave of Apple”, since its customers can only use “the applications that Apple allows them to install through its App Store” and the iCloud to make backup copies of dat.

“It is no wonder that Apple’s totalitarian approach is so appreciated by the Communist Party of China, which – thanks to Apple – now has full control over the applications and data of all its citizens who depend on iPhones,” he concluded. .

The New York Times Investigation

Journalists from The New York Times argued in a recent article that Apple has made numerous concessions to the Chinese government to continue operating there.

In response to the Chinese cybersecurity law, which came into force in 2017, the apple company agreed to move the servers with the information of the country’s users to China.

The outlet indicated that these data centres are fully controlled by a Chinese state company, and that the digital keys to the databases are also stored there. In addition, the tech giant does not use the same data encryption as in other countries, because Chinese law prohibits it.

On the other hand, it would be the recently founded company Guizhou-Cloud Big Data (GCBD), owned by the Guizhou provincial government, which technically manages iCloud data in China, details the medium. Apple and GCBD established special terms and conditions for the use of the cloud storage system, which gave the Chinese entity access to all the data. In other words, local authorities do not have to request user data from the Cupertino (California) -based company, but instead officially send their request to GCBD.

The New York Times also detailed that Apple removes numerous applications from the App Store not only at the request of governments, but also at its own expense, if it considers that these may not be liked by local authorities.

Thus, the ‘apps’ that refer to the Dalai Lama, the independence of Tibet and Taiwan were removed from the Chinese store.

Apple Response

For its part, the technology giant stressed in a statement that it has never endangered the security of its users or their data in China or anywhere it operates. “Many of the claims in this report are based on incomplete, outdated and inaccurate information,” he added.

“We comply with the law, but we do not make concessions regarding the security of the users,” he said, adding that he “maintains control of the encryption keys of user data.