Apple refused to hand over source code to China, lawyer tells US Congress hearing, rebutting claims of quiet cooperation

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Bruce Sewell, Apple’s general counsel; Amit Yoran, president of RSA Security Inc; Matthew Blaze, associate professor of computer and information science, at the University of Pennsylvania; and Daniel Weitzner, director of MIT's Internet Policy Research Initiative, are sworn in at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 8:26am, 20 Apr 2016Updated: 8:26am, 20 Apr 2016

Apple Inc has been asked by Chinese authorities within the last two years to hand over its source code but refused, the company’s top lawyer told lawmakers on Tuesday in response to US law enforcement criticism of its stance on technology security.

The congressional testimony highlighted an issue at the heart of a heated disagreement between Apple and the FBI over unlocking encrypted data from an iPhone linked to last December’s San Bernardino, California shootings - how much private technology companies should cooperate with governments.

I want to be very clear on this. We have not provided source code to the Chinese government

Bruce Sewell, Apple’s general counsel

Law enforcement officials have attempted to portray Apple as possibly complicit in handing over information to China’s government for business reasons while refusing to cooperate with U.S. requests for access to private data in criminal cases.

“I want to be very clear on this,” Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell told Tuesday’s hearing under oath. “We have not provided source code to the Chinese government.”

Apple has previously denied the accusation as a “smear” originating from the US Department of Justice’s effort to force Apple to help unlock the iPhone 5c used by one of the two San Bernardino killers, who were inspired by Islamist militants.

The claim resurfaced in the hearing called by a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee to examine potential common ground between law enforcement and the technology sector in the encryption debate, though more than three hours of testimony yielded little clear agreement.

Captain Charles Cohen, commander in the Indiana State Police, repeated the suggestion that Apple has quietly cooperated with Beijing, which strictly regulates technology in exchange for access to its market.