CEO Of Telegram Thinks Apple’s iCloud Is Now “A Surveillance Tool”

The major tech company Apple has been under a lot of scrutiny over the past few months. While some people are bashing the company because of its new smartphone models (which do not show much of a difference compared to the last ones), others think that its apps are hiding a lot of things. One of them is Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram who thinks that Apple’s iCloud feature is “now officially a surveillance tool.”

Citing a report from Reuters on January 21, Durov claimed that apps like WhatsApp relying on iCloud to store messages are “part of the problem.” He delivered his speech in a post on his official Telegram channel in which he said:

“iCloud is now officially a surveillance tool. Apps that are relying on it to store your private messages (such as WhatsApp) are part of the problem.”

Durov’s post refers to a report which claims that Apple dropped its long-running plans to allow iPhone users to encrypt backups of their devices in the iCloud. As Reuters also reported, the tech giant has given up its end-to-end encryption plans following the FBI’s report on it in which they said that such a feature would harm investigators.

The report is viral in the crypto news now and cites even six anonymous sources, noting that Apple had to drop its plans two years ago but the issue has not been reported previously. Even though Apple shifted its focus to protecting some of the “most sensitive user information” such as saved passwords, backed-up texts from apps like WhatsApp or iMessage remain available to many employees and authorities in the tech firm, Reuters wrote.

All of this comes after the US President, Donald Trump, bashed Apple in a tweet in which he argued that the company “refuses to unlock phones used by killers, drug dealers and other violent criminal elements.”

We are helping Apple all of the time on TRADE and so many other issues, and yet they refuse to unlock phones used by killers, drug dealers and other violent criminal elements. They will have to step up to the plate and help our great Country, NOW! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2020

The CEO of Telegram Durov wants all of this to be understood by the public. As we already saw, the company wants to position itself as a global fighter for privacy and directly oppose tech giants such as Facebook and Google. Durov’s claims reinforce the company’s focus on ensuring “real privacy.”

Launched in 2013, Telegram is a cloud-based messaging app which strives to provide secure encryption and protect more users from third parties like marketers, advertisers and officials.