Apple drops iOS Private Relay feature for users in Russia

AppleInsider · September 17, 2021 11:29AM

Apple's forthcoming Private Relay privacy feature in iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey, will reportedly no longer be usable in Russia.

Apple Private Relay

As well as only being available in public beta from the launch of iOS 15, Apple has previously said that Private Relay will not be available in all countries. Now, however, it has seemingly added Russia to that list.

AppleInsider has been contacted by readers reporting the removal, and local Twitter user @abdulla_hasan has shared a screenshot.

iCloud Private Relay is no longer supported in Russia pic.twitter.com/df4z1q0gLQ
-- (@abdulla_hasan)
September 16, 2021

Previously, Apple had revealed that the privacy service won't be in Belarus, China, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines, because of local regulations.

The removal of it from Russia comes as Apple, and Google, have also capitulated over Russian demands that an election app be removed from the App Store.

Read on AppleInsider

CheeseFreeze · September 17, 2021 11:48AM

Apple's vision of putting user privacy-first is just marketing.
They just 'turn off' their mantra in Belarus, China, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines (and counting)....

sirdir · September 17, 2021 11:54AM

CheeseFreeze said:

Apple's vision of putting user privacy-first is just marketing.
They just 'turn off' their mantra in Belarus, China, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines (and counting)....

Agree. But what should they do instead?

ikir · September 17, 2021 11:57AM

CheeseFreeze said:

Apple's vision of putting user privacy-first is just marketing.
They just 'turn off' their mantra in Belarus, China, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines (and counting)....

Nope Apple is doing a lot. Sadly there is nothing you can do here, just stop selling your products. And what you achieved?
And this has nothing in common with CSAM discussione where multi DB are used so no one is in control of them, indeed CSAM would be available (not anymore) on USA only where there are entities who protect children. Apple always did what is possible to do, even when their choices are easily manipulated by detractors. But in this case Apple can’t do nothing. And it is pretty sad.
you should angry with our politicians who have more power to change Russia government.

mikethemartian · September 17, 2021 1:39PM

sirdir said:

CheeseFreeze said:

Apple's vision of putting user privacy-first is just marketing.
They just 'turn off' their mantra in Belarus, China, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines (and counting)....

Agree. But what should they do instead?

Take the money if they want but stop pontificating about how ethical they are.

mike1 · September 17, 2021 2:01PM

mikethemartian said:

sirdir said:

CheeseFreeze said:

Apple's vision of putting user privacy-first is just marketing.
They just 'turn off' their mantra in Belarus, China, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines (and counting)....

Agree. But what should they do instead?

Take the money if they want but stop pontificating about how ethical they are.

Wrong. By talking about the changes they need to make and raising awareness about which countries require those changes, they do more to influence eventual change in those countries than simply storming out of the sandbox like a spoiled child.

netrox · September 17, 2021 2:25PM

mikethemartian said:

sirdir said:

CheeseFreeze said:

Apple's vision of putting user privacy-first is just marketing.
They just 'turn off' their mantra in Belarus, China, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines (and counting)....

Agree. But what should they do instead?

Take the money if they want but stop pontificating about how ethical they are.

Those countries are a perfect example of why we are so lucky to live in America. USA cannot prohibit private relay as it would violate the First Amendment.

Apple offers privacy of that level if legal.

rcfa · September 17, 2021 2:38PM

ikir said:

CheeseFreeze said:

Apple's vision of putting user privacy-first is just marketing.
They just 'turn off' their mantra in Belarus, China, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines (and counting)....

Nope Apple is doing a lot. Sadly there is nothing you can do here, just stop selling your products. And what you achieved?
And this has nothing in common with CSAM discussione where multi DB are used so no one is in control of them, indeed CSAM would be available (not anymore) on USA only where there are entities who protect children. Apple always did what is possible to do, even when their choices are easily manipulated by detractors. But in this case Apple can’t do nothing. And it is pretty sad.
you should angry with our politicians who have more power to change Russia government.

It has EVERYTHING to do with CSAM scanning: because which databases are used isn’t a technical but a policy decision, and when Russia demands that they decide which hash databases to use, Apple will comply.
The only way out, is not to offer the feature.

Also, owners of a device should have authenticated root access to their device, such as to be able to scan their device for unauthorized spyware, or to manually install VPN software without Apple’s or some government’s consent,

“Security through obscurity” never works, what does work is “trust but verify”. Apple bets on the former and prevents the latter, and that’s JUST WRONG.

gatorguy · September 17, 2021 3:17PM

mike1 said:

mikethemartian said:

sirdir said:

CheeseFreeze said:

Apple's vision of putting user privacy-first is just marketing.
They just 'turn off' their mantra in Belarus, China, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines (and counting)....

Agree. But what should they do instead?

Take the money if they want but stop pontificating about how ethical they are.

Wrong. By talking about the changes they need to make and raising awareness about which countries require those changes, they do more to influence eventual change in those countries than simply storming out of the sandbox like a spoiled child.

When has Apple ever talked about the changes Russia or China should make in deference to user privacy? I don't see your talking point as having a thread of validity. It's all about the money IMO, and not anything to do with sticking around to be a positive influence on user privacy in either country.

mark fearing · September 17, 2021 3:19PM

Should foreign companies follow the laws of the countries they do business in? Just ask that question. And it should become obvious that we want companies to follow our laws when they do business here. The U.S. weapons industry sell tens of billions of dollars of weapons and sends support to many countries with horrible human rights records and anti woman and anti LGBT records. Apple is simply doing what every other company in the world does, which is follow the laws of the country they do business in. There is an easy answer that the American capitalists would never stand for - make it illegal for American companies to do business in foreign countries. There. Your issue is solved. Ford, Microsoft, Google, McDonalds ALL follow the laws of the countries they do business in. Please explain why Apple is held accountable in this case but no one else, and what we should do about it?

mark fearing · September 17, 2021 3:20PM

rcfa said:

ikir said:

CheeseFreeze said:

Apple's vision of putting user privacy-first is just marketing.
They just 'turn off' their mantra in Belarus, China, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines (and counting)....

Nope Apple is doing a lot. Sadly there is nothing you can do here, just stop selling your products. And what you achieved?
And this has nothing in common with CSAM discussione where multi DB are used so no one is in control of them, indeed CSAM would be available (not anymore) on USA only where there are entities who protect children. Apple always did what is possible to do, even when their choices are easily manipulated by detractors. But in this case Apple can’t do nothing. And it is pretty sad.
you should angry with our politicians who have more power to change Russia government.

It has EVERYTHING to do with CSAM scanning: because which databases are used isn’t a technical but a policy decision, and when Russia demands that they decide which hash databases to use, Apple will comply.
The only way out, is not to offer the feature.

Also, owners of a device should have authenticated root access to their device, such as to be able to scan their device for unauthorized spyware, or to manually install VPN software without Apple’s or some government’s consent,

“Security through obscurity” never works, what does work is “trust but verify”. Apple bets on the former and prevents the latter, and that’s JUST WRONG.

Why is Apple trying to right the wrongs for a foreign country? Is Apple supposed to travel the world making all governments more responsible to its citizens? Is that what Ford does?

loopless · September 17, 2021 3:31PM

Everyone has a right to be concerned about CSAM scanning. The USA has laws against child pornography therefore Apple developed this CSAM scanning thing. Russia might enact laws against images making fun of Putin. What is to stop apple scanning for fun photos of Putin under threat of being forced out of the country. Apple just becomes an enabler of the Russian secret police. Apples privacy credibility has taken a huge hit they will not recover from.

gatorguy · September 17, 2021 3:53PM

loopless said:

Everyone has a right to be concerned about CSAM scanning. The USA has laws against child pornography therefore Apple developed this CSAM scanning thing. Russia might enact laws against images making fun of Putin. What is to stop apple scanning for fun photos of Putin under threat of being forced out of the country. Apple just becomes an enabler of the Russian secret police. Apples privacy credibility has taken a huge hit they will not recover from.

Clipped from another article:

"As much as Apple claims it would never give in to government pressure to misuse its CSAM scanning feature, cryptography academic Matthew Greene argues that the company just proved these assurances are worthless.

Apple spent the entire summer telling the public that they were confident they could resist government pressure, when defending their CSAM scanning system. Today they’re pulling voting guides from the Russian App Store. What changed in a month?
Apple’s defense of removing voting guides is that they have to obey the law of the nations they operate in. And yet if legislators demand they expand their image scanning corpus, they say they will refuse. They intend to break the law in that case, but not this one?

A Russian citizen replied saying that's not all.

It doesn’t stop there. Yesterday they turned their new Private Relay quasi-VPN service off for Russians even though it worked fine in iOS beta versions plus there’s still hundreds of RU IP addresses reserved for it. No explanation given.

Personally, I can’t see how Apple can possibly continue to argue the case. We know it will do what local laws require, because it has done so, and it has said so. We know it will give in to blackmail, because it has just done so.

So far, Apple has merely delayed its plans to think of additional safeguards, but it’s hard to see how any safeguard could protect against legally imposed or blackmailed capitulation."

mikethemartian · September 17, 2021 5:31PM

mike1 said:

mikethemartian said:

sirdir said:

CheeseFreeze said:

Apple's vision of putting user privacy-first is just marketing.
They just 'turn off' their mantra in Belarus, China, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines (and counting)....

Agree. But what should they do instead?

Take the money if they want but stop pontificating about how ethical they are.

Wrong. By talking about the changes they need to make and raising awareness about which countries require those changes, they do more to influence eventual change in those countries than simply storming out of the sandbox like a spoiled child.

They don’t influence shit. It is just meaningless talk. Everybody knows in the end they aren’t going to stand up for anything. Must feel nice to pat yourself on the head but if you don’t put your money and blood into the game then everything you say is meaningless. Let’s all give each other a big group hug and tell ourselves that at least we meant well.

cpsro · September 17, 2021 6:09PM

The alternative to disabling iCloud Private Relay is that Apple's relay servers would be blocked by the Russian government. Apple might as well disable the feature.

mcdave · September 17, 2021 7:52PM

CheeseFreeze said:

Apple's vision of putting user privacy-first is just marketing.
They just 'turn off' their mantra in Belarus, China, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines (and counting)....

US marketing from a US company for US people & nobody else. Despite recent efforts the World isn’t the US.

cpsro · September 17, 2021 8:23PM

mcdave said:

CheeseFreeze said:

Apple's vision of putting user privacy-first is just marketing.
They just 'turn off' their mantra in Belarus, China, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines (and counting)....

US marketing from a US company for US people & nobody else. Despite recent efforts the World isn’t the US.

Dump Putin

entropys · September 17, 2021 9:41PM

California dreaming. California boomer dreaming.

jedwards87 · September 19, 2021 1:32PM

mark fearing said:

Should foreign companies follow the laws of the countries they do business in? Just ask that question. And it should become obvious that we want companies to follow our laws when they do business here. The U.S. weapons industry sell tens of billions of dollars of weapons and sends support to many countries with horrible human rights records and anti woman and anti LGBT records. Apple is simply doing what every other company in the world does, which is follow the laws of the country they do business in. There is an easy answer that the American capitalists would never stand for - make it illegal for American companies to do business in foreign countries. There. Your issue is solved. Ford, Microsoft, Google, McDonalds ALL follow the laws of the countries they do business in. Please explain why Apple is held accountable in this case but no one else, and what we should do about it?

Its not about Apple following the laws of the country they do business in. I don't think anyone would suggest otherwise. Its the fact that Apple touts and brags about privacy is a human right and about how important human rights are to them but then they bow to countries like Russia. Either do not do business there or quit with the we are holier than though attitude. What's on your iPhone stays on your iPhone is pure BS. And sure you can say well that applies to US customers...blah blah blah. Their world wide events would suggest otherwise. Apple is a huge profit machine for their share holders and nothing else. The top of their priority list is profits. Everything else is negotiable.

apple tree · September 19, 2021 2:27PM

Apple is stuck between rock and a hard place. So they chose to stay in Russia by complying with local laws. But you can still get a VPN servIce / TOR if you need anonymity.

amar99 · September 20, 2021 12:45PM

Just one more reason for people not to upgrade. 15 is likely to have the slowest adoption rate in history.

Apple drops iOS Private Relay feature for users in Russia

Comments

Personally, I can’t see how Apple can possibly continue to argue the case. We know it will do what local laws require, because it has done so, and it has said so. We know it will give in to blackmail, because it has just done so.