According to new reports Apple is now storing all of its consumer’s iCloud data in a State-Owned company.
A state-owned telecommunications company in China now stores the iCloud data for Apple’s China-based users. This is really bad news for dissidents and critics of the government.
In February, Apple caused an uproar when it announced it would be moving Chinese users’ iCloud accounts — and their encryption keys — to a China-based server company Guizhou-Cloud Big Data. Human rights advocates warned this move would be dangerous, especially so for Chinese dissidents. Apple’s response was that it simply had no choice but to comply if it wanted to continue providing its iCloud service to Chinese customers.
Fast forward to today: China Telecom, a government owned telco, is taking over the iCloud data from Guizhou-Cloud Big Data. This essentially means that  a state-owned firm now has access to all the iCloud data China-based users store, such as photos, notes, emails, and text messages.
Chinese state-run media is heralding the move as a win for consumers, but Chinese citizens have been extremely condemnatory of the decision. On Weibo, China’s Twitter clone, the conversation about the iCloud data has mostly centered around concern over censorship and users’ privacy.
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