Apple's rebuttal of CCTV's allegations over iPhone location tracking

In the wake of recent allegations diffused by China’s state television channel CCTV, over fear that Apple’s iOS may present a threat to China’s national security, Apple has released a statement of its own, meant to reassure Chinese customers that the iPhone poses no threat to China’s government secret intelligence.

“We want to make sure all of our customers in China are clear about what we do and we don’t do when it comes to privacy and your personal data.” - Apple (AAPL)

In a statement issued on behalf of Ma Ding, the director of the online security department at People’s Public Security University of China has been quoted as saying that the [location tracking] function on the iPhone has the ability to collect information, and may be exploited to divulge state secrets.

Apple responded that it has never worked with any government agencies, and never allowed the installation of backdoors in its operating system for use by the NSA, or other US government agencies.

Apple went on explaining that location tracking provides traffic information to iOS users, helping them finding faster routes to their destination, as well as speeding up certain apps that provide local information.

Chinese People’s Daily newspaper microblog commentary has criticised Facebook and Google as well for allegedly participating in a secret U.S. government-lead spy conspiracy against China. The commentary follows recent accusations from a number of US companies who have reported being hacked by five Chinese military officers, in addition to CCTV’s own report of a provincial government ordered not to update its existing computer systems, running Microsoft Windows XP, with newer systems running Microsoft Windows 8.