Apple's now storing some personal user data in China
It's no secret that the relationship between Apple and China hasn't always been the best. From the banning of its products for government use, to the Chinese state media wanting the Cupertino company "severely punished" for NSA spying, these cases are well-documented. That said, China's consumer market is extremely important to Apple -- which isn't really surprising, given the sheer magnitude of it. But now, with a number of new iDevices hitting shelves there of late, Apple's had to look to servers located in mainland China to store Chinese users' personal data. As Reuters notes, this is the first time the company has begun storing this type of data in that country -- Apple says the decision was made as part of a plan to improve the overall performance of its cloud service, iCloud.
"We have added China Telecom to our list of data center providers to increase bandwidth and improve performance for our customers in mainland China. All data stored with our providers is encrypted. China Telecom does not have access to the content," Apple told Reuters, addressing whatever questions may rise about the security of said data. What's more, Reuters writes that a source familiar with the matter says the encryption keys for this data "would be stored offshore" and China Telecom wouldn't be given access to them. In other words, China's users can rest assured their personal iCloud belongings are being well taken care of.
