# Apple transfers Chinese iCloud encryption keys to GCBD

Date: 2018

## The fact

In February 2018 Apple’s Chinese iCloud service began operating under Guizhou-Cloud Big Data, with encryption keys for China accounts stored in China, a completed localisation instrument under Cook.

## Context

Neighbouring FBI 2016 is a US encryption fight in the opposite direction. Neighbouring China production is the assembly file. He did not write a Cyberspace Administration statute.

FBI 2016 is neighbouring US encryption. China production is neighbouring assembly. Hong Kong App Store 2020 is later content.

[Tim Cook](/people/tim-cook) has been Apple CEO since 24 August 2011. He does not write a DOJ complaint, a Commission DMA decision, an Irish Finance Act, or a Chinese Cyberspace Administration rule. Steve Jobs is a different, dead person. A product launch is not a labour statute. A privacy keynote is not a completed DMA compliance certificate. Keep those dates separate. A 10-K climate page is not a unique ppm. An assembler audit is not a unique suicide count as his personal tally. A DMA listing is not a completed sideload world. A DOJ complaint is not a breakup. TSMC fabricates; Foxconn assembles; App Review enforces.

## Evidence and sources

Apple carries the official instrument or communique. Reuters records the same dated act independently.

## Significance

The path is [personal-data-protection](/drivers/personal-data-protection): a completed encryption-key transfer to a PRC partner is a speech-and-access concession.

## What is established and what is not

Established: 2018 GCBD operation of iCloud China and key localisation, independently reported.

Not established: that Cook authored every later access request, or a unique later dissident coefficient from the support page.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, a later repeal, a court that vacated the instrument, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

GCBD operated. CAC set the legal frame. Users in China sat behind that frame.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies Apple transfers Chinese iCloud encryption keys to GCBD, not a later speech about Apple transfers Chinese iCloud encryption keys to GCBD.

Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. Apple transfers Chinese iCloud encryption keys to GCBD on 2018-02-28 is not a licence to treat every later Apple communique as this same act. If a later repeal, stay, or successor instrument exists, it needs its own date and its own row. This dossier refuses to average Apple transfers Chinese iCloud encryption keys to GCBD into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to He was CEO of the 10-K issuer that contracted GCBD. GCBD operated. CAC set the legal frame. Users in China sat behind that frame. That limit is the alternative to treating office-holding as authorship of every later series.

## People

- Tim Cook: https://factrail.ai/people/tim-cook

## Drivers

- Personal-Data Protection: https://factrail.ai/drivers/personal-data-protection
- Digital-Rights and Platform-Power Regulation: https://factrail.ai/drivers/tech-digital-rights-regulation

## Sources

- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-china-icloud-idUSKCN1G80K4
- https://support.apple.com/en-us/111754

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/aapl-gcbd-2018