BEIJING: The Beijing municipal government has announced that Chinese state-backed experts have discovered a method for identifying users of Apple’s encrypted AirDrop messaging service.
This discovery has significant implications, as AirDrop allows users to send content directly to Apple devices in close proximity without an Internet connection, ensuring that it cannot be viewed by other people. However, the service was widely used by participants in pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019, which were eventually quelled by the Chinese central government.
In response to protests against the ruling Communist Party’s stringent zero-Covid policy, Apple also limited file-sharing for Chinese iPhone users in 2022.
According to the Beijing municipal government’s justice bureau, experts at the Beijing Wangshen Dongjian Justice Appraisal Institute have devised a way to reveal an iPhone’s encrypted device log, enabling them to identify an AirDrop user’s phone number and email accounts.
The bureau’s statement on Monday mentioned that the technique “cracked the tough technological problem of the transmission of inappropriate information with anonymous traceability via AirDrop” and also “raised the efficacy and accuracy of case detection and resolution, and has effectively helped police ascertain several case suspects”.
However, it is unclear whether the technique has led to any arrests or convictions yet. Apple has not responded to requests for comment from AFP.
There have been widespread reports that people in China used AirDrop to spread digital leaflets critical of the government in late 2022. The transmissions were believed to be partly inspired by a protest in Beijing in which a man hung banners calling for the removal of President Xi Jinping.
In November of that year, Apple released an AirDrop update for users of Apple smartphones in China, which made it virtually impossible to receive unexpected files from strangers.
For years, Chinese authorities have used digital surveillance methods on its citizens, with most domestic social media apps requiring users to register using their real names. They must also provide proof of identification to purchase SIM cards or install home broadband connections.
Apple has been criticized for making perceived concessions to Xi’s China, including removing a Hong Kong map application used by pro-democracy protesters in 2019. The company’s CEO, Tim Cook, defended the move at the time, claiming that the app was being used to target individual police officers.
In 2020, Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong that has all but quashed public dissent in the former British colony. – AFP
