Apple boss takes aim at 'weaponization'
of customer data
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[October 24, 2018]
By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Apple Chief Executive
Tim Cook said on Wednesday customer data was being "weaponized with
military efficiency" by companies to increase profit.
Cook, speaking at the International Conference of Data Protection and
Privacy Commissioners, said Apple supported a federal privacy law in the
United States and also touted the iPhone maker's commitment to protect
users' data and privacy.
Issues over how data is used and how consumers can protect their
personal information are under the spotlight after big breaches of data
privacy involving millions of internet and social media users in Europe
and the United States.
Apple, which designs many of its products so that it cannot see users'
data, has largely avoided the data privacy scandals that have enmeshed
its rivals Google and Facebook this year.
"The desire to put profits over privacy is nothing new," Cook told a
packed audience of privacy regulators, corporate executives and other
participants.
He cited former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis who in a
Harvard Law Review article in 1890 warned that gossip was no longer the
resource of the idle and the vicious but had become a trade.
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"Today that trade has exploded into a data industrial complex. Our own
information, from the everyday to the deeply personal, is being
weaponized against us with military efficiency," he said.
"These scraps of data ... each one harmless enough on its own ... are
carefully assembled, synthesized, traded, and sold."
He said algorithms, a major tool for competitors, were turning harmless
preferences into hardened convictions.
"If green is your favorite color, you may find yourself reading a lot of
articles — or watching a lot of videos — about the insidious threat from
people who like orange," Cook said.
"We shouldn't sugarcoat the consequences. This is surveillance. And
these stockpiles of personal data serve only to enrich the companies
that collect them," he said.
Cook also warned about governments abusing users' data and their trust,
a concern for many with elections coming up in several countries
worldwide.
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![](../images/102418PIX/news_o25.jpg)
Apple CEO Tim Cook delivers a keynote during the European Union's
privacy conference at the EU Parliament in Brussels, Belgium October
24, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman
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"Platforms and algorithms that promised to improve our lives can
actually magnify our worst human tendencies," Cook said.
"Rogue actors and even governments have taken advantage of user
trust to deepen divisions, incite violence, and even undermine our
shared sense of what is true and what is false."
Cook said Apple fully backed a federal privacy law in the United
States, something Europe has already introduced via its General Data
Protection Regulation.
"Users should always know what data is being collected and what it
is being collected for," he said. "This is the only way to empower
users to decide what collection is legitimate and what isn’t.
Anything less is a sham."
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai will share
their views via video messages later in the day.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee. Editing by Jane Merriman)
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