Apple has risked its customers’ data and aided government censorship in China in a bid to appease the authorities there, a New York Times (NYT) investigation has revealed. This goes against the company's carefully crafted image as a defender of privacy and civil liberties. China assembles most of Apple's products and the country also generates one-fifth of the tech giant's revenue. Using this as leverage, the Chinese government has pressured Apple into making compromises that the company doesn't make in any of its other markets. While India doesn't hold the same leverage yet, it is an emerging market for the iPhone maker and the company has recently ramped up its manufacturing efforts in the country. Apple's compromises in China could result in Indian authorities asking for similar concessions in the future. What compromises has Apple made in China? Stores customer data on Chinese government servers: In 2017 the Chinese government passed a data localisation law requiring companies to store personal information and important data that is collected in China within China. Apple agreed to comply with this law and move its Chinese customers' data onto servers in a data centre owned and physically managed by a Chinese state-owned company. Until recently, most of that data for Apple's Chinese customers was stored on servers outside China. What this means for India: India is currently working on the draft Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill, 2019, which mandates that sensitive personal data must be mirrored in the country and that critical personal data (which will be defined in…
