Does Apple Log Your iMessage Contacts And Shares With Police ?

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Apple must have boasted about all its security methods including end-to-end encryption and privacy, but latest information reveals that the iMessage that you send isn’t as secure as you may have thought. A new report in The Intercept suggests that Apple may be logging and potentially sharing information like phone numbers of people that you iMessage with law enforcement agencies.

When a user contacts anyone through Apple messages app, the app pings the server to find out if the recipient has an iMessage account. The report adds that Apple takes a note of the IP address along with the date and time. This could help with providing information on the user’s location. The information is then stored for 30 days before it is deleted.

“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,” the report reads.

Although the contents of iMessages sent over Apple's servers are encrypted end-to-end, thereby making them unreadable even to Apple, the metadata could be used to connect dots during a criminal investigation.

However, Apple in a statement quoted that- “In some cases, we are able to provide data from server logs that are generated from customers accessing certain apps on their devices. We work closely with law enforcement to help them understand what we can provide and make clear these query logs don’t contain the contents of conversations or prove that any communication actually took place.”

Apple is known for its strong position towards customer privacy. This report can very well put questions on the high standards maintained by the tech-giant over the years.