According to a Russian company, Apple's iPhone terminals send call logs made using them almost in real time. Although iCloud Backup can store this information if there are activated synchronization functions available for it, it seems that the call logs are sent even when iCloud Backup is disabled on our terminals.
According to the Russian company Elcomsoft, all these call logs taken from the iPhone are stored for 4 months in Apple's iCloud servers. According to the president of Elcomsoft, starting with iOS 10, the American company expanded the type of data that is taken almost in real time from our iPhone terminals.
FaceTime calls are also logged in Apple's iCloud servers, but also the missed ones for applications such as WhatsApp or Skype, all without our knowledge. The Apple company does not detail in any document the fact that iPhone terminals transmit data regarding phone calls without our knowledge even when iCloud Backup is disabled, but this is what happens.
iPhone sends call logs directly to Apple without us knowing
Even if iCloud backup is disabled, as long as iCloud Drive is active, call log data is automatically sent to Apple. The only solution to solve the problem is to disable iCloud Drive on the iPhone, but that would leave many applications without the information available in this iCloud system.
"All FaceTime calls are logged in the iCloud too, whilst as of iOS 10 incoming missed calls from apps like WhatsApp and Skype are uploaded, said Elcomsoft, which provides phone forensics tools to the police. Syncing call logs happens almost in real time, although sometimes only in a few hours. But all you need to have is just iCloud Drive enabled, and there is no way to turn that syncing off, apart from just disabling iCloud Drive completely. In that case many applications will stop working or lose iCloud-related features completely."
The Apple company says that in the case of a backup via iCloud, it stores call data for 30 days, but in reality this happens for 4 months instead of 1. Computer security researchers claim that this would be a mistake by those from Apple and not something intentional, but of course the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Having said that, as long as you use iCloud Drive, without iCloud Backup, the data regarding calls made via iPhone are automatically transmitted to Apple, without us knowing.
UPDATED: Here's what Apple had to say.
"We offer call history syncing as a convenience to our customers so that they can return calls from any of their devices. Apple is deeply committed to safeguarding our customers' data. That's why we give our customers the ability to keep their data private. Device data is encrypted with a user's passcode, and access to iCloud data including backups requires the user's Apple ID and password. Apple recommends all customers select strong passwords and use two-factor authentication.”
