BEIJING – The iPhone 6 will be sold in China from 17 October, after rigorous regulator scrutiny led to Apple Inc reassuring the Chinese government that the smartphones did not have security ‘backdoors’ through which United States agencies can access users’ data.
Apple won approval to sell the phones after also addressing risks of personal information leaks related to the operating system’s diagnostic tools, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said on its website yesterday.
The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were released on September 19 in the United States and elsewhere, but regulatory delays meant Chinese consumers had to wait. The initial lack of a China launch date caught analysts by surprise because of Apple’s repeated comments about the importance of the world’s biggest smartphone market.
Apple and other American technology companies have been subject to greater scrutiny in China after former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden last year revealed spying and surveillance campaigns, including programmes that obtained private data through US technology firms.
In July, Chinese state media accused Apple of providing user data to US agencies and called for ‘severe punishment’. Apple responded by publicly denying the existence of backdoors.
The notice of approval for the iPhone 6 could potentially mark the ministry’s first for a specific smartphone, suggesting Apple is subject to more scrutiny than its peers in a year in which the US tech giant will release a new phone on all three of China’s major mobile networks for the first time. – Nampa-Reuters
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