Stefan Mileschin

All that privacy it brags about? Turns out not so much

While Apple, and its fanboys, have been lecturing about how much privacy the fruity cargo cult offers customers, it turns out it is considerably more friendly with law enforcement than they think.

Secret recordings of a surveillance firm's presentation show how much iCloud data Apple surrenders to law enforcement with a warrant.

PenLink is a little-known firm from Nebraska which earns $20 million annually from helping the US government track criminal suspects. PenLink also sells its services to local law enforcement -- and it's from such a sales presentation that details of iCloud warrants has emerged.

According to Forbes, Jack Poulson of the Tech Inquiry watchdog attended the National Sheriff's Association winter conference. While there, he secretly recorded the event.

During the presentation, PenLink's Scott Tuma described how the company works with law enforcement to track users through multiple services, including the "phenomenal" Apple with iCloud.

Apple is open about what it does in the event of a subpoena from law enforcement. It says it will not unlock iPhones, but it will surrender information from iCloud backups that are stored on its servers.

Tuma said that if someone did something bad it would almost certainly be on that backup.

As for location tracking, Tuma said it is possible to find people's locations through different services, although not through iCloud.

https://fudzilla.com/news/54443-appl...icloud-to-cops