Speaking at the EU data protection conference CPDP today, Tim Cook gave the opening talk with his talk entitled “A way to empower user choice and increase user confidence in advertising”. Cook addressed Apple’s concerns about privacy and security in the technology industry, the hope it sees for changes in the future, what it is doing to protect privacy, its deep concerns and consequences with Facebook’s business model, and more.
Tim Cook addressed a variety of concerns that Apple sees when it comes to privacy and security across the technology industry. He reiterated that, in many cases, people are no longer customers, but the product that companies are selling to advertisers.
“As I said before, if we accept as normal and inevitable that everything in our lives can be aggregated and sold, we lose much more than data, we lose the freedom to be human. And yet, this is a promising new season, a time for reflection and reform. “
Cook praised the GDPR for being the most concrete progress in consumer privacy and security and said it was time for the US and the rest of the world to pass similar legislation.
Together, we must send a universal and humanistic response to those who claim the users’ right to private information about what should not and will not be tolerated.
Cook said advertising has prospered for decades without invading personal privacy. And detailed Apple’s recent privacy features, such as privacy nutrition labels and the next iOS 14 ad tracking transparency feature.
Although Cook did not call Facebook by name, he condemned his business model that any engagement is good engagement and captures as much user data as possible.
If a company is built on the basis of misleading users, data exploitation, choices that are not options, it does not deserve our praise, it deserves reform.
Going further, he said:
Many are still asking, “How much can we get away with?” when they should be asking “what are the consequences?”
Cook believes that the end result of this approach to technology is the polarization of society, the loss of trust and violence.
The tension between Apple and Facebook has grown in recent months, especially since yesterday. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company’s earnings conference call that “Apple has a lot of incentive to use its dominance on the platform to interfere with the way our apps and other apps work, which they do regularly to give preference. to yours. This impacts the growth of millions of companies worldwide, including with the upcoming changes to iOS14, many small businesses will no longer be able to reach their customers with targeted ads. “
He also said that Facebook increasingly sees “Apple as one of our biggest competitors”. And just this morning we learned that Facebook may be preparing an antitrust lawsuit against Apple.
Working to contrast the approach of Facebook and others, Cook elaborated what Apple sees as ethical technology:
At Apple, we made our choice a long time ago. We believe that ethical technology is the technology that works for you. It is a technology that helps you sleep, does not keep you awake. It says when you’ve had enough, it gives you space to create, draw, write or learn, and don’t update just one more time. It’s a technology that can stay in the background when you’re out hiking or swimming, but it’s there to warn you when your heart rate increases or to help you when you have a bad fall. And with all this, it’s always privacy and security in the first place, because nobody needs to negotiate the rights of its users to deliver a great product.
Check out Cook’s full speech below (-41: 00 minute marker):
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