Comment by izacus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by izacus | Hacker News Reader

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Can you explain a bit more? Apple iCloud services collect and upload a huge amount of data to Apple servers. Emails, calendars, tasks, your private messages (iMessage), phone diagnostic data, GPS location data (cell tower / wifi location helper service), SMS, MMS messages, application data and more.

Sure a lot of this is encrypted, but Apple explicitly warns you on support page that they WILL give iCloud data to authorities if warrant is sent.

Quote:

> iCloud content may include email, stored photos, documents, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, Safari browsing history and iOS device backups. iOS device backups may include photos and videos in the Camera Roll, device settings, app data, iMessage, SMS, and MMS messages and voicemail. All iCloud content data stored by Apple is encrypted at the location of the server. When third-party vendors are used to store data, Apple never gives them the keys. Apple retains the encryption keys in its U.S. data centres. iCloud content, as it exists in the subscriber’s account, may be provided in response to a search warrant issued upon a showing of probable cause.

(Section G in https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/law-enforcement-guidelin... )

So why do you think there's a difference?

iOS device backups sort of poke a hole in my comment, since they by definition store essentially everything on your device that I said Apple keeps local. I’ll fall back on a weaker argument, that Facebook collects similar information as well, especially if you’ve ever used an Android device.

Yeah, the fact that Facebook app is preloaded (with granted permissions!) on many Android phones is a huge issue.

What Apple will do with our data when provided with a legal warrant or subpoena is a very, very different question from what they will do when provided with an opportunity to monetize the same data.

The problem with Facebook is not, and has never been, that they will give the data they have to the government as part of a properly-conducted investigation into allegations of criminal misconduct. It's that they themselves will use it, and will sell it to a wide variety of other corporate entities who will use it, for a wide variety of other corporate purposes.

Including, as recently demonstrated, attempting to sway elections.

You have not linked to a support page, you have linked to a PDF titled 'Legal Process Guidelines'. (That is definitely NOT a privacy policy.)

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303 would probably be the right support page, however, Apple mentions what is done – and not what is NOT done, in particular end-to-end-encryption of iCloud backups.

I still agree that Apple plays in a different league than Facebook with regard to privacy. At the same time, there is still a lot to do for Apple, especially regarding data security. Just a current example:

https://www.mac4n6.com/blog/2018/3/30/omg-seriously-apfs-enc...

>So why do you think there's a difference?

I think I s unarguably true that having our data online and backed up is a risk that needs to be weighed up against the very real advantages we get. That applies to both Apple and Facebook. However only one of those companies has explicitly built a business model around selling that data. Let’s not set up any false moral equivalencies.

By itself having data we have chosen to entrust to them isn’t a problem. It’s what they choose to do with it that matters, alongside the gathering of information we have chosen not to entrust to them regardless of our choice.

> Let’s not set up any false moral equivalencies.

Speaking of which, can we stop equivocating between "selling that data" and "selling ads which are targeted partially based on that data," as you did in your post?

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