[miki123211]

From an EU perspective, Microsoft is doing data protection, Apple is doing data privacy.

Microsoft's approach to data is basically "we promise nobody else but you and your government can access it, we can but we pinky swear we won't." This promise is mostly enforced at the legal layer and through legal consequences, not technical safeguards. If they think they can get away with it (or are forced to get away with it by the US government), there's nothing stopping them from using your data in whatever way they want.

When they can, Apple designs their systems so that they physically don't even have the capability to use your data, even if it's processed on their own servers. They're not privacy maximalists like Signal is, they care more about user experience, but they do aim for the highest level of privacy you can get while still having a good experience, and when they do need to make sacrifices, they typically let you opt into the privacy features if you really want to.

I'm far more inclined to believe that Microsoft is secretly (or not so secretly) collaborating with the US government than that Apple is.

[tguedes]

There has been anecdotal statements/blogs from Apple employees about the data privacy. They have said building some internal capabilities or user facing features are extremely difficult or impossible because they aren't able to access user data at the level required.

[the_mar]

From the information presented, the privacy case is not that your data is only accessible to you (which arguably can have a backdoor) but that the data is NOT stored at all, so it's not possible to build a backdoor. I know there are probably other ways around it, but it's my understanding is that no data is kept on any server when the response is sent back to your device

[antiframe]

I don't think the Snowden allegations were about employee access to user data.

[ziofill]

Do you have any examples?

[tguedes]

There is a comment in this thread from an alleged Apple employee that said that, but it doesn't seem like it's possible to send a link for a specific comment. Over the years I've seen comments and blogs posted here in Hacker News reaffirming the same thing.

But to answer your question directly, I don't have any links for those blogs or comments

[rusk]

> it doesn't seem like it's possible to send a link for a specific comment

Click on where it says how long ago the comment was posted

For example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48461367

[tguedes]

Thank you!

[tguedes]

I'm replying again because another commenter showed how to link to a comment

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48456081