Apple transparency report: over 1,000 government requests for user data
US authorities asked for user data from Apple accounts 1,015 times during the second half of 2015, according to figures the iPhone maker released Tuesday.The requests pertain to information on services such as iMessages, emails, photos and device backups.
The number of requests is up from 971 during the first half of last year and 788 during the last six months of 2014.
- While the number of requests has gone up, the number of users affected by such requests has fluctuated and in late 2015 was about the same as it was a year earlier.
- Apple’s transparency report also suggests that investigators are adapting to a world where consumers, and criminal suspects, spend less time on landline telephones, which could be tapped with the help of a phone company. Apple received significantly fewer law enforcement requests during the second half of 2013, totaling 638.
- In the back half of 2015, the US government made 1,250 to 1,499 national security requests of Apple affecting 1,000 to 1,249 accounts. That’s up from 750 to 999 requests affecting 250 to 499 accounts during the first half of last year.
Is Apple's next product an electric car?
Apple’s not-so-secret project to build an electric car is heating up, according to media reports, with the company poaching an expert from rivals Tesla. It has also opened an R&D office in Germany, home to some of the world’s most important luxury car manufacturers.
- While Porritt, who quit Tesla in September 2015, is one of many former Tesla engineers employed in Cupertino, he’s one of the only senior managers to have made the jump. The timing of his departure coincides with comments made by Elon Musk in October 2015, when he referred to Apple as a “Tesla Graveyard”.
- At Tesla, Porritt worked on all three of the company’s major cars – the models S, 3 and X – and before then his career spanned Land Rover, where he worked for a decade and Aston Martin, where he spent 16 years as chief engineer.
- The paper also reports that the company is aiming for a street date in 2019 or 2020, but that the initial version of the car will not be the self-driving wonder that many have been hoping for. According to Faz, that will come later but when it hits the market it won’t even be partially automated.
No comments:
Post a Comment