Apple issued a comment regarding allegations the Cupertino-based organization can read iOS users' iMessages.
According to QuarksLab, Apple can read your iMessage but only if the organization wants to or if given a government order.
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"As Apple claims, there is end-to-end encryption. The weakness is in the key infrastructure as it is controlled by Apple: they can change a key anytime they want, thus read the content of our iMessages," wrote QuarksLab, in an in-depth report about iMessage's privacy. "Also remember that the content of the message is one thing, but the metadata are also sensitive. And there, you rely on Apple to carry your messages, thus they have your metadata.
Apple released a statement contradicting QuarksLab's findings.
"iMessage is not architected to allow Apple to read messages," Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller told AllThingsD. "The research discussed theoretical vulnerabilities that would require Apple to re-engineer the iMessage system to exploit it, and Apple has no plans or intentions to do so."
"In other words, iMessage was built to thwart attacks, not abet them," reported AllThingsD's John Paczcowski.
Apple has previously stated it places priority on protecting their customer's personal data, and a statement in June 2013 was disclosed following the National Security Agency's "Prism" program.
"We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer content must get a court order," said Apple on June 16, 2013.
The Cupertino-based organization did confirm it received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from the U.S. law enforcement for customer data between Dec. 1, 2012 and May 31, 2013, at times ranging from investigations in robberies, search for missing children, locating patients with Alzheimer's disease, and other crimes, to name a few.
It is in the June 16 statement that Apple confirmed how its iMessage and FaceTime programs work.
"For example, conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them. Apple cannot decrypt that data," stated Apple's June 16 statement. "Similarly, we do not store data related to customers' location, Map searches or Siri requests in any identifiable form."
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