Did the NSA Demand Apple's Data?

The company's potential hint about NSA spying is not in its latest report. Or is it?

A change in language in a recent Apple report may hint at government requests for the company's user data.

By Tom Risen

People rushed to buy Apple’s new iPhone 6 Friday, but the company may have dropped a privacy warning that the National Security Agency wants information about its users.

Apple CEO Tim Cook announced an updated privacy policy this week to reassure people about the company’s security and vigilance. But the company's latest transparency report is missing language from previous versions that Internet freedom activists recognized as a clue about NSA spying.

“Apple has never received an order under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act,” the 2013 version of Apple’s report said, referring to the legal authority that allows the NSA to covertly request company data records. “We would expect to challenge such an order if served on us.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation advocacy group called such language a “warrant canary,” since it is illegal to disclose specifics about classified requests for data without court approval. That means thedisappearance of that phrase would be a warning sign.

“If the canary is removed in the next transparency report, it is safe for users to assume that a Section 215 data request and the accompanying gag order has been issued,” April Glaser, a staff activist with the EFF, said in a blog post.

The lack of the exact, previous language may be misleading, however, and the company may have simply rephrased the warning, according to a tweet from Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist with the American Civil Liberties Union's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.

Either way, a canary is a sign that technology companies are pushing back against government surveillance, along with their efforts advocating for reform in Congress to limit bulk data collection.

Apple detailed in its new privacy policy that it has only disclosed data on approximately “0.00385 percent” of its millions of users in response to government requests, and that it received 250 or fewer national security-related requests in the first half of this year.

"Though we would like to be more specific, by law this is the most precise information we are currently allowed to disclose," the company said.

Apple also explained in its policy that it has never allowed a spy agency to develop a back door program to access its customers’ information.

“Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data,” the company states on its website. “So it's not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.”