Apple CEO Tim Cook: Privacy is “One of the Top Issues of the Century”

Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke this morning at the Computer, Privacy and Data Protection virtual conference, where he discussed Facebook’s business model and Apple’s upcoming transparency tracking application. applications, and then detailed some of his speeches in an interview with Fast company.

Cook said privacy is “one of the most prominent issues of the century” and that it is important to put “deep thought” into it to find out how to “leave something for the next generation that is much better than the current situation.” “Cook said privacy“ should be weighed ”as climate change, another huge problem facing the world.

On the subject of why people should care about their privacy, even when there is nothing to hide, Cook said he tries to get people to think about living in a world of constant surveillance, which Apple has done so this morning with the release of a paper called “A Day in the Life of Your Data” detailing how third-party companies track user data across websites and apps.

“What changes do you make later in your own behavior? What do you do less? What do you no longer do? Why aren’t you so curious if you know that every time you’re on the web, you look at different things, explore different things, you’ll end up restricting each more and more? This kind of world is not a world that none of us should aspire to.

“And so I think most people, when they think like that … they start thinking quickly about‘ well, what am I looking for? I look for this and that. I really don’t want people to know “I look at this and that, because I’m just curious about what it is” or whatever. So it’s this behavior change that happens that is one of the things that worries me deeply and I think everyone should care about it.

Cook also noted that not all “Big Tech” companies are the same and said he is concerned about the “widespread categorization” of giving all companies a single label to major companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple. “I try to encourage people to think at a deeper level than that and to think about the companies themselves and their business models and how they behave, etc., what their values ​​are,” he said.

Cook was asked about whether he believes artificial intelligence is a threat and about its range compared to privacy, and said “both” can be used negatively and “can be amplified by technology.” . Cook said ethical AI and ethical data privacy and data collection are important issues that “need to be worked on.”

Fast companyThe full interview with Cook also deals with technology and extremism, privacy legislation and regulation, and the future of privacy in technology, and it’s worth reading.