China introduced a new cyber security law on June 1 that imposes tougher controls over data than in Europe and the United States, including mandating that companies store all data within China and pass security reviews.
Apple announced last year that it will migrate all user data from Chinese iCloud accounts to local servers run by Guizhou-Cloud Big Data Industry Co Ltd (GCBD), which is part of a state-backed infrastructure project overseen by local Communist Party officials.The move is scheduled to happen on Feb. 28, and Apple this week notified users of the shift via emails linked to Chinese iCloud accounts.However, despite earlier assurances by Apple that only local accounts will be affected, five Chinese users who had set up Apple iCloud accounts using U.S. emails, payment methods and addresses said they had received notices that they needed to opt into the transfer or risk losing their data. Their U.S. accounts did not contain any of their Chinese information, they said. "As far as they [Apple] know I'm a U.S. resident with a U.S. address, phone, email and payment details," one user in Beijing surnamed Liu, 26, told Reuters. He declined to share his full name in case his secondary account is identified and closed."How could they possibly judge that I'm a Chinese citizen?" It was not immediately clear how many users in all received these warnings from Apple or how the company identified the users to send the notices. But thousands of users have taken to social media to criticize the firm and crowd source workaround solutions to the new rules, which don't give users an opt-out option that would allow them to keep their data. Apple declined to comment on why users with U.S. Apple IDs received the notices.Opening foreign Apple ID accounts is one way that Chinese users are able to evade strict censorship controls by accessing overseas App Stores which host virtual private network (VPN) apps and other features.Apple last year removed dozens of local and foreign VPN apps from its Chinese app store, as well as popular media apps and communication tools including Microsoft Corp's