Apple has launched its first bug bounty programme, offering up to $200,000 to people who manage to hack it.

The company will hand over cash to hackers that come forward with information about problems with its security. That will allow the company to then patch up those blogs – meaning that they can’t be used by malicious hackers to extract information or put people at risk.

The commitment puts Apple in line with other tech companies that run similar bug bounty programmes. They are intended to make it more valuable for hackers to hand over information rather than put it to use or sell it on to other malicious users.

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Google, Facebook and many other big tech companies have long offered such rewards to hackers. Apple has been criticised for not doing by people who argue that security holes might go unnoticed and so unfixed by the company – and so exploited by other malicious people.

Initially, the reach of the programme will be limited, and Apple will only hand over cash to researchers it has worked with before. But it may look to expand it further, allowing anyone to participate as other companies do.