AppleInsider Staff
A memo has surfaced, showing that Tim Cook supports Apple's choice to remove the controversial police monitoring app, HKMap Live, from the App Store.
The once-banned-then-reinstated app, HKMap Live, has been once again pulled from the App Store. Now, Tim Cook has gone on record in a memo saying that he defends the choice to finally remove it from the App Store once and for all.
HKmap Live was an app intended to track police activity on the streets of Hong Kong. The developer's stated objective was to allow users to avoid areas where protesters and police conflicts could potentially take place.
However, the argument was made that the app could be used for evading the police. According to a copy of the memo received by Bloomberg HKMap Live has been used "maliciously to target individual officers for violence and to victimize individuals and property where no police are present."
The developers of HKMap Live have gone on record saying that they do not agree with Apple's decision.
1. We disagree @Apple and @hkpoliceforce 's claim that HKmap App endanger law enforcement and residents in Hong Kong.#HKmap #HKmaplive #HK #Censorship
— HKmap.live (@hkmaplive) October 10, 2019
Apple has been criticized for the move, being added to the list of companies under scrutiny as the Hong Kong protests intensify. Activision Blizzard Inc. has also recently been put under fire after banning a pro gamer from a Hearthstone tournament after he had shown support for Hong Kong protests in a post-game interview.
HKMap Live is not the only app to be removed from the Chinese App Store in recent times, either. Quartz, a news app that featured extensive coverage of the Hong Kong protests, had been removed from the Chinese App Store earlier this week.
Below is the full memo that Tim Cook provided via email to Apple employees.
Team,
You have likely seen the news that we made the decision to remove an app from the App Store entitled HKmap.live. These decisions are never easy, and it is harder still to discuss these topics during moments of furious public debate. It's out of my great respect for the work you do every day that I want to share the way we went about making this decision.
It is no secret that technology can be used for good or for ill. This case is no different. The app in question allowed for the crowdsourced reporting and mapping of police checkpoints, protest hotspots, and other information. On its own, this information is benign. However, over the past several days we received credible information, from the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau, as well as from users in Hong Kong, that the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for violence and to victimize individuals and property where no police are present. This use put the app in violation of Hong Kong law. Similarly, widespread abuse clearly violates our App Store guidelines barring personal harm.
We built the App Store to be a safe and trusted place for every user. It's a responsibility that we take very seriously, and it's one that we aim to preserve. National and international debates will outlive us all, and, while important, they do not govern the facts. In this case, we thoroughly reviewed them, and we believe this decision best protects our users.
Christine McKee
William Gallagher
Malcolm Owen
Wesley Hilliard
85 Comments
👍Tim...
This is a PR battle Apple cannot win. Heads they side with the protesters and China takes it out on them. Tails things get increasingly worse in Hong Kong and Apple appears to be helping and authoritarian regime beat up on protesters.
Apple has not choice, at the end of the day they have a responsibility to their employees and shareholders. Apple could be morally right keeping it up since it is no worse than Waze. However, if they do not pull it down, China can make it very costly to Apple to the point Apple will not be able to make and ship product out of China. Yes Apple could go elsewhere, but there is not enough manufacturing elsewhere to support the worlds demand of Apple products.
For all the people who want to be on the Moral High Ground the only place you can do that in this day and age is being naked in the woods somewhere. If you really dug into everything you would find that something related to that product could be deemed reprehensible. In the case most people like their cheap electronics coming out of China.
I said this in the other thread on this topic before it was taken down. The US has similar laws that people are not allow to track police and what they are doing. Yes police have been unsuccessful at pulling down Waze, but there was long debate on this topic. In the US it is illegal to have a police radio scanner in your car as well if you are caught with police scanner in your possession during a commission of a crime the penalty for the crime become far worse. Before people say this would never happen elsewhere it has, no one has a right to monitor police present and use it to commit a crime. This is independent of whether you agree or disagree what is happen in Hong Kong.
I said in another thread that this is a 'damned if you do and damned if you don't' case.
Given what has been made public on the reasoning applied to this case, I'm sure most people will be able to understand the decision even if they don't share it.