[cmiles74]

Apple claims that messages sent with their Messages application are end-to-end encrypted, even in China, and that they have made no concessions to government of China.

But... Everyone in China has their iCloud backups stored in China and Apple holds the keys to these backups. While Apple cannot read E2E encrypted Messages content, they do upload an unencrypted (but encrypted with keys they control) backup of all of the phones Messages data.

It seems likely China can ask Apple for a backup of a citizen's phone and Apple will comply with that request. Or they have access to these data centers.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/25/apple-moves-icloud-encrypt...

[layer8]

An iPhone doesn’t force you to you iCloud backups (or iCloud at all). Or does it in China?

[cmiles74]

That is a good point. It's also possible that Apple has made some kind of concession but has found a weasel-y way to do it that let's them feel like they can claim no concessions have been made.

Maybe the difference is that Apple feels they may be able to talk the UK out of this idea.