Apple says it never gave source code or backdoors to China

Apple’s latest court filings in its ongoing battle with the American government are pretty entertaining in their own right. But they also shed some light on one of the chief criticisms of Apple in its Department of Justice dealings: namely, that it’s refusing to bend for the US government but it has already given in to Chinese government demands.

While it is true that Apple has made some concessions to the Chinese government, these latest filings make it pretty clear that Apple denies having done anything like what the FBI and the DOJ are asking for in China. From the filings (citations removed for the sake of clarity):

Apple has never built a back door of any kind into iOS, or otherwise made data stored on the iPhone or in iCloud more technically accessible to any country’s government. The government is wrong in asserting that Apple made “special accommodations” for China, as Apple uses the same security protocols everywhere in the world and follows the same standards for responding to law enforcement requests.

Separately, Apple executive Craig Federighi reportedly confirmed in a court declaration that “Apple has also not provided any government with its proprietary iOS source code.”

Of course, for the company to say anything less than this publicly would be a public relations disaster. But given that these statements were made in the context of heated ongoing legal proceedings, it’s clear that Apple intends to stand behind them.

So, if you take the company at its word, you’ve got the answer to a couple of longstanding rumors: no, China doesn’t have the iOS source code, and no, China doesn’t have a backdoor into iOS.