A Washington Post report claiming the National Security Agency and FBI are accessing the servers of Apple and eight other companies has been denied by Apple. The program is code-named PRISM — launched in 2007, it is claimed to let the NSA directly collect data from Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, and Youtube.
It is unknown whether the program involves direct cooperation with these companies, or relies upon indirect monitoring of their servers using surveillance tactics.
For its part, Apple has denied knowledge of PRISM.
“We have never heard of PRISM,” said Steve Dowling, a spokesman for Apple. “We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order.” Other companies have also denied the report, using similar language.
