Apple's location-based services are deemed a threat to national security in China, reports China's state-run media, but Apple begs to differ, stating it doesn't grant any government backdoor access into its network.
Central China Television, a national news network in China, was said to have relayed the allegations, that Apple products threatened national security, from the head of online security at the People's Public Security University in China, Ma Ding.
The reports state Apple's location-based services were collecting "extremely sensitive data," asserting the collected data could reveal details on China's economic state and compromise classified information.
Apple took to the Chinese version of its website to combat the CCTV allegations and re-affirm its security policies.
"As we have stated before, Apple has never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services," stated Apple. "We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will. It's something we feel very strongly about."
Apple appreciates CCTV for raising the issue of location privacy, the company said, and it wanted to use the opportunity to clarify its policies on the subject.
Apple said iPhones reduce the time the handsets take to triangulate users' locations via GPS by incorporating Wi-Fi and cell tower data from secure databases, while restricting the transmission of identifying device information in the process.
"Apple gives customers control over collection and use of location data on all our devices," stated Apple. "Customers have to make the choice to enable Location Services, it is not a default setting. Apple does not allow any app to receive device location information without first receiving the user's explicit consent through a simple pop-up alert. This alert is mandatory and cannot be overridden."
Bryan Wang, Forrester Research's country manager for China, questioned the timing in which the allegations against Apple's location-based services emerged. He said location features were all but standard around the world, across just about every smartphone platform.
"Apple was singled out by the state media CCTV, probably in alignment with the critical negotiation timing between the U.S. and Chinese governments now, where a lot of things are on the negotiation table and also with consideration that Apple's China revenue is the largest among all U.S. companies," said Wang.
In related news, Apple revealed in June 2014 that it planned to introduce a security feature in its upcoming iOS 8 that would prevent analytics firms from tracking iPhone users via Wi-Fi. The security feature would scramble iPhone MAC addresses, which identify devices when they communicate with Wi-Fi networks and have been used in conjunction with store surveillance to pinpoint customers.
