Tim Cook is concerned that slow erosion of privacy is a big danger
Darryl Boxberger
Apple CEO Tim Cook worries that a slow loss of privacy in today's world will gradually train people and coerce them into acting differently as they adjust to a new normal.
Apple's CEO spoke about the fears he holds in a landscape where devices are progressively better at tracking its users. His remarks were made at the Time100 summit, on Tuesday.
"If we begin to feel that we're being surveilled all the time, our behavior changes. We begin to do less. We begin to think about things less. We begin to modify how we think," said Cook in the panel. "In a world like that where we're restraining ourselves, it changes society in a major way."
Cook said that while he is concerned about the future of privacy, he remains optimistic. He described how Apple is in effect providing tools to help users secure their own data and private lifestyle.
Apple, under Cook's leadership, has continued what Steve Jobs started. In the last few years, the company has put a marketing focus on the privacy the Apple ecosystem offers.
A recent example is series of ads highlighting how the iPhone protects user data.
Apple is one of the few big tech companies that had not pursued a business model where personal data is used to drive profit. While Apple does collect user data to train its machine-learning models, it uses the data fully anonymized, stripping it of all personal information.
Cook believes, and has said repeatedly, that giving up some privacy in highly-specific ways in certain settings might be beneficial. However, he ultimately argues that people should have ownership of their data and to be able to keep it private.
"It's tough to say that a company or anyone for that matter, should be able to step in and on an uninformed basis vacuum up your data," Cook added, "That's a large concern of mine."
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12 Comments
He’s absolutely right. More and more I hear people saying that “they know everything about us anyway so why worry about” Google, Facebook, the police, etc., etc. It’s very disconcerting. And I’m afraid that I’m not as optimistic as TC is though. I was shocked how easily people accepted pat downs, x-rays, and searches in order to fly on an airliner. “But it’s for safety” was the BS they used and everyone ate it up and asked for seconds. All it takes is for someone in authority to say the words “safety” or “protect the children” and people seem eager to give up their personal freedoms, and human rights. That’s how they are attacking things like encryption.
I find it very depressing.
"Slow erosion"? It's actually happening pretty fast, especially with all the countries demanding Apple open up everything.
Add it to the list...
He’s right. At least there’s one prominent corporate leader saying this out loud, and actually doing something about it in popular products, for large numbers of people.