Pixel Security

Oh my.

Yes Apple backdoors their phones for government surveillance access.

There's no sneaking here. I'm saying it very clearly as a central tenet of my comment.

-----------------------

Here's a list of things that Apple will provide from Apple's own Guide for Law Enforcement Access:

- Device Registration (name, address, email address, telephone number, iCloud Apple ID)

- Customer Service Records

- iTunes (name, physical address, email address, and telephone number, purchase/download transactions and connections, update/re-download connections, and iTunes Match connections, iTunes subscriber information and connection logs with IP addresses, specific content purchased or downloaded).

- Apple Retail Store Transactions (cash, credit/debit card, or gift card transactions, type of card, name of the purchaser, email address, date/time of the transaction, amount of the transaction, and store location, receipt number)

- Apple Online Store Purchases (name, shipping address, telephone number, email address, product purchased, purchase amount)

- iTunes Gift Cards (sixteen-digit alphanumeric code, nineteen-digit code, any purchases, name of the store, location, date, and time, user account

- iCloud (music, photos, documents, iCloud email, encryption keys, Subscriber Information, iCloud feature connections, connection logs with IP addresses, Mail Logs, records of incoming and outgoing communications such as time, date, sender email addresses, and recipient email addresses, Email Content, Other iCloud Content, Photo Stream, Docs, Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, iOS Device Backups, stored photos, documents, contacts, calendars, bookmarks and iOS device backups, photos and videos in the users’ camera roll, device settings, app data, iMessage, SMS, and MMS messages and voicemail)

- Find My iPhone (including connection logs)

- Other Available Device Information (MAC Address for Bluetooth, Ethernet, WiFi, or FireWire)

- Requests for Apple Retail Store Surveillance Videos

- Game Center (Connection logs with IP addresses, specific game(s) played)

- iOS Device Activation (including upgrades the software, IP addresses, ICCID numbers, and other device identifiers)

- Sign-on Logs (iTunes, iCloud, My Apple ID, and Apple Discussions, Connection logs with IP addresses, Sign-on transactional records)

- My Apple ID and iForgot Logs (password reset actions, Connection logs with IP addresses)

- FaceTime (logs when a FaceTime call invitation is initiated, content protected by 15 bits of entropy if secure enclave baked key is obtained from manufacturer)

And, from this thread on HN today (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12977612): All call logs including contacts, timestamps, and durations including for third party applications on the phone like WhatsApp, Skype and Viber.

However, it Apple has capitulated to a combination of carrots and sticks. Today, it enables surveillance of its customers.

Apple VP Lisa Jackson:

>Please know that Apple will continue its work with law enforcement. We share law enforcement’s concerns about the threat to citizens and we work closely with authorities to comply with legal requests for data that have helped solve complex crimes. Thousands of times every month, we give governments information about Apple customers and devices, in response to warrants and other forms of legal process. We have a team that responds to those requests 24 hours a day. Strong encryption does not eliminate Apple’s ability to give law enforcement meta-data or any of a number of other very useful categories of data.

For an understanding of what data Apple gives surveillance operations access to, the following list is enumerated in an older Law Enforcement Access document: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12983081

It's also important to understand that the purpose for this surveillance (this following section being informed by the Snowden Disclosures) is not merely for investigative work or for tracking down terrorists. Intelligence work of this kind is used in HUMINT operations (mass propaganda), for industrial espionage, for diplomatic espionage and for signals collections (intelligence used to break into networks).

It is not clear whether Apple shares these concerns with the US government, or whether it shares lesser concerns that show up at a much lower frequency.