For years, Apple has listed privacy as a key advantage It beats competitors like Google and Microsoft. Instead of relying on cloud processing to enhance or organize your photos, which requires sending them to Google’s servers, Apple performs those tasks right on your device. But with the arrival Apple Intelligence, the company’s take on artificial intelligence, the company is stepping out of its comfort zone with Private Cloud Compute. It says “private” in the name, so it should be safe, right?
Although Apple AI runs some models natively, it will sometimes need to send data to Apple’s servers for complex queries. So how does the company compare to its previous security posture?
According to Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering, the company is very careful about how it sends your data to its servers. “You put a lot of faith in the cloud…with Private Cloud Compute, the stakes are even higher,” said Apple’s AI chief John Giannandrea in a WWDC 2024 chat with YouTube influencer iJustine.
During his WWDC keynote, Federighi showed how Apple AI can help him reschedule a meeting and determine if his daughter still can’t make it to a dance recital. Apple AI was able to determine who the girl really was, where her event was, and the approximate travel time from her date.
Federighi says that Apple doesn’t send all of your data to the cloud, instead it uploads only the most important pieces of data that are relevant to your Apple AI request. Additionally, your server request is anonymous because it uses the same IP masking technology iCloud Personal Relay. Federighi also noted that Apple’s cloud servers have no permanent storage and no ability to store logs.
To make things even more secure, Federighi says Private Cloud Compute servers run software with published images for security researchers to inspect. Apple Intelligence devices can only talk to servers running those verified images — if there are any changes to the servers, local devices must also be updated to see them.
This process can be a bit restrictive, but that’s the point. Federighi calls this “a step up” in the level of trust you can achieve with server computing. “It’s important that no one—not Apple or anyone else—has access to the data used to process your request,” he said.
