Chinese authorities asked Apple to hand over its source code within the last two years but the tech giant refused, its top lawyer has revealed.
Giving evidence under oath to a congressional hearing, Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell stated: “I want to be very clear on this. We have not provided source code to the Chinese government.”
Sewell was speaking at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee called to examine ways that law enforcement agencies and the technology sector can co-operate in the encryption debate.
It has previously been suggested that Apple secretly assisted Chinese officials – who strictly regulate technology – in exchange for access to its market of 1.3 billion citizens.
The company has dismissed this as a “smear”.
Apple has been stuck in a fierce debate with US authorities since the terrorist attack in San Bernadino, California last December in which a married Muslim couple shot dead 14 people and seriously injured a further 22.
Apple refused repeated government requests to unlock encrypted data from an iPhone 5c linked to the terrorists, Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik, citing privacy concerns.
The San Bernadino incident has revived a wider debate between Washington and Silicon Valley about national security versus privacy.
The Justice Department initially wanted Apple’s cooperation in writing new software to disable the passcode protections on the iPhone.
But tech and security experts said that if the government obtained Apple’s source code with a court order, other governments would demand equal rights to do the same thing.
The FBI dropped its case against Apple last month having announced it had found a third party expert to help investigators hack into Farook’s iPhone.
This week freedom of speech concerns were raised after it emerged that Twitter recently hired a new managing director for Greater China who previously worked for a company which has strong links to Beijing’s powerful domestic security ministry.
