“Our business is not based on having information about you. You’re not our product. Our product are (iPhones), and this watch, and Macs, and so forth. And so we run a very different company. I think everyone has to ask, how do companies make their money? Follow the money. And if they’re making money mainly by collecting gobs of personal data, I think you have a right to be worried.”
— Tim Cook, Apple CEO, in an interview with Charlie Rose that aired last night. He tells Rose he’s “offended by lots of it,” referring to the collection of personal information. (But the Wall Street Journal points out that Apple has its own, somewhat new iAd business.)
Cook also denies the government has had “backdoor” access to Apple’s user information, something that was reported based on the leaks about NSA spying by Edward Snowden. “They would have to cart us out in a box before we would do that,” Cook said.
Meanwhile, there are privacy concerns over the Apple Watch, which among other things will run apps that will collect information about a user’s health. Where will that data go, how will it be protected and will it be shared with anyone, Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen wants to know. Jepsen has requested a meeting with Apple. (The Wall Street Journal reported recently that Apple told HealthKit developers they may not use user information for advertising purposes.) As for the Apple Pay payment system, the company has said it won’t be tracking its users’ spending.
The privacy questions come in the wake of celebrities’ iCloud accounts being compromised recently. Apple has said the unauthorized access into the accounts of Jennifer Lawrence and other celebrities — which led to the publication of their nude photos — was the result of phishing, not lax security on its part.
Photo of Tim Cook from Associated Press archives