Apple jumps from chump to champ in just a year, says privacy group

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governmentdatarequests

There are few companies you can trust with your private data ever since the revelations leaked by Edward Snowden shook the tech world last year, but according to the latest report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, our iPhone-making friends in Cupertino have gone from being a privacy chump to the people’s champ in just a year.

In its annual “Who has your back?” report, the EFF report card that tells consumers what companies are doing to protect their users, Apple scored full marks in all six categories that measure protection against data request from the government after receiving just one star a year ago.

Apple’s dismal privacy rating started to increase last year after Tim Cook met with President Obama regarding the NSA’s data gathering policies. Since then Apple has led the push for more government transparency by publishing the number of data requests it receives and alerting customers when the NSA and other entities request their data.

The government doesn’t have access to our servers,” Cook informed ABC in an interview earlier this year. “They would have to cart us out in a box for that.”

Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter also received six out of six stars as the companies took steps the last year to be more transparent about data requests, along with fighting for privacy rights in the courtroom and lobbying Congress for better privacy laws.

On the other end of the spectrum, AT&T and Amazon barely notched two stars each. Snapchat, the sexting and communication app of choice of young people, received the worse score of all with just one star after the FTC slammed the app last week for its total disregard for privacy promises.

For a full breakdown on which services you can trust, see the full chart on EFF’s site.

 

Via: GigaOM

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