Apple
promises that your iMessage conversations are safe and out of reach
from anyone other than you and your friends. But according to a
document obtained by The Intercept, your blue-bubbled texts do leave
behind a log of which phone numbers you are poised to contact and
shares this (and other potentially sensitive metadata) with law
enforcement when compelled by court order.
Every
time you type a number into your iPhone for a text conversation, the
Messages app contacts Apple servers to determine whether to route a
given message over the ubiquitous SMS system, represented in the app
by those déclassé green text bubbles, or over Apple’s proprietary
and more secure messaging network, represented by pleasant blue
bubbles, according to the document. Apple records each query in which
your phone calls home to see who’s in the iMessage system and who’s
not.
This
log also includes the date and time when you entered a number, along
with your IP address — which could, contrary to a 2013 Apple claim
that “we do not store data related to customers’ location,”
identify a customer’s location. Apple is compelled to turn over
such information via court orders for systems known as “pen
registers” or “trap and trace devices,” orders that are not
particularly onerous to obtain, requiring only that government
lawyers represent they are “likely” to obtain information whose
“use is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.” Apple
confirmed to The Intercept that it only retains these logs for a
period of 30 days, though court orders of this kind can typically be
extended in additional 30-day periods, meaning a series of monthlong
log snapshots from Apple could be strung together by police to create
a longer list of whose numbers someone has been entering.
Full
report:
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