I use an IPhone, but I do not want my backup files stored on an American server. Is there a way to direct the app backups elsewhere?
Hi @Sceptre! The backups use iCloud Drive, so the storage country will depend on which region Apple are using for your iCloud account.
I’m unsure how you can determine that. I’ll have a quick search to see if I can find out… Ok so the answer seems to be that Apple don’t explicitly tell us which country our data is being stored in.
But I suspect if your Apple account is an EU based account then your data would be stored on EU based servers, in order to best conform to EU data regulations. I do know that China based accounts definitely store their data inside China, due to China government requirements.
For other regions and countries, I’m less certain what will be happening.
For selecting a different cloud service provider instead of Apple / iCloud Drive, that might be possible in future in Arc Timeline Editor app (see the announcement posts for the public beta details). But yeah for now it’s limited to only supporting iCloud Drive.
Oh, I should mention though that the iCloud Drive backups are optional (though recommended). And if those are turned off, then none of your data leaves your phone - it’s only stored on your phone and nowhere else.
Thanks for your reply. I live in Canada and I am reasonably sure my backups are stored on the US server. I am trying to move all my storage to Canadian locations.
I will download as much of the backup as I can and only put it back on ICloud if I need it.
Many people and businesses, even American ones are moving their cloud storage out of the US because of their surveillance policies.
1 Like
Ah Canada. Yeah that’s a difficult situation! I agree, your iCloud data is certainly being stored on US based servers.
Just Googling now, you can enable Advanced Data Protection for your iCloud account, which also works for iCloud Drive data.
That makes it impossible for Apple or anyone else to decrypt your iCloud data. Although not quite the offshoring you’d like (or I’d like either!) it would at least give you certainty that US authorities couldn’t access your data that remains on iCloud servers in the US.
Thanks for your help. I will do that. Incidentally, ICloud will not allow me to download or copy any of my Arc data. Is this normal?
Best regards,
Tim
Is that the backups in iCloud Drive? If so, that’ll be an iOS / iCloud issue, and not one I’ve seen before. You should always be able to download / copy / move / etc files in iCloud Drive.
If it’s something else, then … there isn’t anything! Arc doesn’t store any data in iCloud or anywhere else, other than the optional iCloud Drive backups. All of its data is stored only on your phone, for privacy and security reasons. So outside of the iCloud Drive backups (found in iCloud Drive → Arc App → Backups) there’s nothing to download or delete.
This is actually an explicit design decision with the Arc family of apps - that none of your data is stored on remote servers (except for the optional iCloud Drive backups, if you choose to turn those on). Almost all other apps of this kind store their data on remote servers, but Arc does not.
Thanks again for getting back to me. The stuff on my iCloud drive appears to date from when I changed from Moves to Arc and I have found a way to import it.
Thanks for your help. Great app. Keep up the good work
Tim
1 Like