But only in America. Because other nations have privacy laws.
If you use Apple services, your images are automatically saved to iCloud, which physically exists in America. Being in another country won't help unless you're explicitly refusing to use iCloud, which as far as I know, isn't an optional feature on Apple devices and you agreed to use it the moment you clicked 'accept' on the terms of service.
Both are false.
ICloud is an optional service.
ICloud servers are scattered throughout the world. It would be really really dumb to have 1 server in the US for the whole world.
I can attest to the icloud is an optional save feature for your photos. Though I think it defaults to "On". To turn it off:
- Go into Settings
- Poke your profile name/avatar at the top
- Poke on iCloud
- First entry under "Apps using iCloud" should be "Photos"
- To the right poke "On" (or "Off)
- Next screen, select "iCloud Photos" to off
I did so a year or so ago, turned it off, because it was screwing up my Lightroom folders, constantly synching and out of synching stuff, putting stuff in the wrong folders, etc. So I ditched the icloud option. Probably pilot error more than anything else, but I gave up trying to fix it so I killed it.