The Intercept:
Apple promises that your iMessage conversations are safe and out of reach from anyone other than you and your friends. But according to a document obtained by The Intercept, your blue-bubbled texts do leave behind a log of which phone numbers you are poised to contact and shares this (and other potentially sensitive metadata) with law enforcement when compelled by court order.
An Apple spokesperson confirmed only that the logging information in the iMessage FAQ is “generally accurate,” but declined to elaborate on the record.
This might be minor or it might be significant, depending on how the information is being used. Regardless, it’s a peek behind the security curtain that tells us we may not be as secure or “hidden” from prying eyes as we would think or hope.
Where’s the outrage? 😉
On MacRumors.
If this surprises, or worries you, you really should destroy all of your electronic devices, and go live in a bunker.
That this happens is obvious and seems unavoidable on the surface, now that I think about it. I wonder if Apple can fix this using something like differential privacy. If Apple asks for several phone numbers each time, including some you don’t actually care about, there might not be enough good data in there to mine.
What is not obvious is why 30 days. Actually, a better way of saying this is that it is quite obvious that they could shorten this period.
Maybe. But ANYTHING they log, they may be required to give up those logs or even allow a tap into them. 30 days or 3, it doesn’t matter. If they log at all, courts will be able to demand them.