Tim Cook believes users have a right to privacy
Apple might often be seen as a big bad corporation that is trying to exploit consumers into earning it revenue, but it turns out that it does have a sense of morality, and as Tim Cook explained in an interview he believes that users have a right to privacy.
In the second part of his interview with Charlie Rose, Tim Cook revealed that Apple tries to collect as little user data as possible, saying:
Our view is that when we design a new service we try not to collect data. So we’re not reading your email. We’re not reading your iMessage. If the government laid a subpoena on us to get your iMessages, we can’t provide it. It’s encrypted and we don’t have a key.
Our business is based on selling [products]. Our business is not based on having information about you. You are not our product.
That’s a nice thing to hear, especially these days when it seems that every company is trying to collect and sell information about its users (people like Facebook and Google). Cook also revealed that nobody, not even Apple itself, has backdoor access into Apple’s systems, stating that the company would never allow that to happen and that “they would have to cart us out in a box before we would do that.”
It’s a nice fresh revelation, especially in the wake of Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing of NSA spying techniques. Its good to see that at least one company is standing up and saying “hey, this isn’t right we won’t do that.”
Want to read more? Here’s our coverage of the recent Apple announcements, including everything you need to know about Apple’s ‘phablet’, the iPhone 6 Plus, and smartwatches buying guide, or if you’re sick of Apple completely, here’s our rundown of our 14 favourite dating apps, from Tinder to eHarmony.
2 comments
Most applications that people install on their I-Phones are tracking your activity .. and offering up ads based on your surfing and location… Don’t be fooled sports fans.
Maps and Yelp are just to of hundreds that do this.
Hello, Mr. Carter. Your comment is misleading and inaccurate, and that is more respect that it deserves. Any App on a iOS device, that has not been deliberately jailbroken by it’s owner, is prevented from directly “tracking” information without the user approving that access. If Yelp wants to use your device to know where you are, so it can return relevant search results for good pizza places nearby, it cannot do so until the user agrees to allow it. When Yelp requests that access, an alert appears telling the user that Yelp wants to use their location, and asking if they want to allow this, and how much they want to allow it. This happens for any App wanting access to anything from outside itself except Keyboard and Touch input, including Location, Cameras, Microphone, Contacts, the Notification system…Every App lives in a sandbox and must ask the user, not Apple, whether they can use anything outside that sandbox. Hackers and many developers cry about this all the time, because historically all platforms have been “open”, which really means that they can do whatever they want. Recently, other platforms have been pushed by the things Apple did to protect users to follow suit, however, they do this for a different reason than Apple did: just to bait the mice. Applications that most people install on their iPhones (this is how you spell it, Bob) cannot gather information on them that they did not explicitly permit that App to gather. Location based iAds are also an option you have to deliberately grant permission. Maps can’t find you unless you say “Yes” first. The internet is full of people who say asinine things without any basis in fact, and usually the truth wins over time, but in your case, “Sports Fan”, you deserve a bit of direct correction. I sincerely hope you argue with me, because I feel like wiping the floor with an ignorant troll today.
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