Apple is set to open a data centre in China with ties to the country’s government. This raises concern about the security of iCloud accounts that stores personal information transferred from smart devices.

The data centre will be located in the Guizhou province and Apple is teaming up with Guizhou on the Cloud Big Data to comply with a new Chinese law that requires data storage providers to keep the information on computers located within the country.

The Guizhou centre will store all data uploaded to iCloud accounts by Apple customers in mainland China, even when they’re travelling outside the country. While Apple says it will hold to the security keys, experts believe the data centre will make it easier for the government to retrieve the information through legal demands or other means.

According to Nate Cardozo, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Apple will find it more challenging to resist any order from a Chinese court to give the local authorities the access to an iCloud account that they wish to sift through. Therefore, Cardozo recommends that Apple customers in the mainland China turn off the iCloud feature on their Apple devices to protect their information from prying eyes.

Story source: US News