Despite Apple's tough stance on the privacy of your user data, the company has decided not to implement unbreakable encryption on that data when it's backed up to iCloud, according to six sources familiar with the matter. As reported by Reuters, the sources said Apple bowed to pressure from the FBI when the agency said such encryption would hurt investigations.

Reuters' sources say Apple's decision came two years ago, but that it hasn't been reported. The company and the FBI have been involved in a number of high-profile public disputes over unlocking the phones of suspects in cases including the 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. Apple has so far refused to do so, even writing a customer letter explaining why.

According to tech journalist Rene Ritchie, however, iCloud backups are encrypted. It’s just that Apple can restore them if you lose your password, for example, which would also allow the company to restore your backups if it’s legally required to do so. That doesn’t mean they will, of course.

However, if the company were to decide to pursue this iCloud backup strategy in response to complaints from the FBI, it would be a very different perspective on how it treats the privacy of all of its users’ data. The existing encryption vulnerability, which is designed to give consumers access to their own locked accounts (usually due to a forgotten password), allows Apple to access these backups and share them with any law enforcement agency for use in their investigations.