Apple started to move all its users' personal data in the China on the state-controlled China Telecom.

This Apple's move is to address the security concern of Chinese government officials regarding the information as security vulnerability.

On Friday, Apple released a statement saying that all personal data stored is encrypted and China Telecom does not have a single access to its content. The encryption keys of Apple will be kept offshore and isn't available to China Telecom

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The company also noted that they take users' security and privacy very seriously.

"We have added China Telecom to our list of data center providers to increase bandwidth and improve performance for our customers in mainland China,” said in the statement.

Fuzhou city government’s website also posted a statement from China Telecom confirming that Apple Inc. indeed started to store users' iCloud data on China Telecom's internet-based data on August 8.

“After 15 months of stringent tests and evaluation… China Telecom has become Apple’s only cloud service provider in China,” says China Telecom's statement.

Apple Inc.'s iCloud is an internet-based storage service to help in backing up data on all the company's devices such as iPad and iPhone. It allows users to store e-mails, contacts, documents, photos, music, and other personal information on external systems that they can also access virtually.

The Cupertino-based company's collaboration with China Telecom comes after the July claim of state-run China Central Television regarding the iPhone as a national security concern because of its location feature.

Sandy Shen, analyst from the research firm Gartner, said that Apple's move to deal with China Telecom could alleviate the concerns of Chinese government about potential leak of information of Apple's users.

Shen also said that Apple's move in storing data in China would help in providing a better user experience because of the improvement on speed and reliability of its iCloud service.

China has been an attractive market for U.S. technology companies like Apple Inc. but it's quite challenging because of its commercial and political tensions due to China's cyber-security concerns from time to time.

TagsApple Inc., china telecom, iCloud, data center