IBM claims not to have given user data to the NSA

International Business Machines Corp has not relinquished its customers’ data to the U.S. government and would challenge any orders to do so, the company said in a blog post on Friday. The post by the world’s largest technology service provider is the latest backlash by a tech company against U.S. electronic surveillance practices, after published reports on Wednesday that alleged the government used websites to break into computers.

Technology giant IBM hasn’t given the U.S. National Security Agency access to any client data and would challenge any surveillance-related gag orders imposed by the government, a top company executive wrote in an open letter to clients Friday. The world’s largest technology services company also says it hasn’t put “backdoors” in any of its products or provided the NSA with encryption keys that would allow the agency to access client data, according to Robert C. Weber, IBM General Counsel and Senior Vice President for legal and regulatory affairs.