Apple responds to Prism reports, emphasizes user-privacy efforts
In an open letter published to Apple’s website Sunday, the company outlined its policies for responding to government requests for information and promised to work to safeguard user privacy.
Early this month, The Guardian broke the story about a U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) program—code-named Prism—under which the NSA has reportedly been monitoring the Internet activities of Americans. The report claimed that the NSA has been directly monitoring the servers of major computing and technology companies such as Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft.
Since that tech-world bombshell, many of these companies, including Apple, have denied working with the NSA in any capacity other than that required by court order. Specifically, an Apple representative told the Washington Post that the company does “not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order.” Other companies have issued similar statements.
These same companies have attempted to further assuage user fears by revealing exactly what cooperation has occurred, but they’ve reportedly been hamstrung by “gag orders” preventing them from revealing such details due to national-security concerns.
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