Apple's Encrypted Browsing Limited: China, Saudi Arabia & More

Apple's Privacy Update and its Restrictions in China

During its annual software developer conference on Monday, Apple unveiled several updates centered around user privacy. A feature called Private Relay has garnered significant attention, particularly among Chinese users who navigate the country’s extensive censorship policies.

How Private Relay Works

Private Relay encrypts a user’s complete browsing history, preventing tracking and data interception. This offers a heightened level of security compared to traditional methods.

Limited Availability

However, Apple has announced that Private Relay will not be available in China. Alongside China, the feature will also be unavailable in Belarus, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda, and the Philippines.

This decision was reported by Reuters, and TechCrunch has sought comment from Apple without immediate response.

VPNs vs. Private Relay

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are commonly used in China to circumvent the “great firewall” and access blocked content. However, VPNs don’t inherently guarantee privacy.

Instead of routing traffic through an internet service provider, VPNs channel it through the servers of the VPN provider itself. This means users are placing their trust in the VPN firm to protect their identities.

Private Relay differs significantly. It’s designed so that even Apple cannot view a user’s browsing activity.

Apple's Perspective on Privacy

In a discussion with Fast Company, Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, highlighted the advantages of Private Relay over VPNs:

“We aim for users to have confidence in Apple as a reliable intermediary. However, we intentionally designed the system so that even that trust isn’t necessary, as we don’t possess the capability to simultaneously identify both the user’s IP address and their final destination. This contrasts with VPNs.”

Federighi continued, “Our goal was to deliver the benefits people seek when choosing a VPN, without forcing them to make a potentially risky privacy compromise by relying on a single intermediary.”

Implementation and Future Outlook

It remains uncertain whether Private Relay will be excluded from system updates for users in restricted countries, or if internet providers within those regions will actively block the feature.

The availability of Private Relay for users in Hong Kong is also unclear, especially considering the increasing levels of online censorship experienced there recently.

Apple's Position in China

Like other Western technology companies operating in China, Apple faces a complex dilemma. It must balance avoiding conflict with Beijing and upholding its stated values.

Apple has previously yielded to censorship demands from the Chinese government. This includes migrating user data to a state-controlled cloud center, restricting VPN applications, limiting expression in podcasts, and removing RSS feed readers from the Chinese App Store.

Further reading on the privacy implications of free VPNs can be found here.