Apple’s Tim Cook: Protecting privacy ‘most essential battle of our time’

From IAPP.org:

Apple CEO Tim Cook joined the keynote stage Tuesday at the IAPP Global Privacy Summit 2022 in Washington, D.C., to once again emphasize his company’s mantra that privacy is a fundamental human right. In the highly anticipated speech, which was livestreamed and covered by television outlets CNBC and Fox, Cook acknowledged that protecting privacy is not easy, but added, “it is one of the most essential battles of our time.” 

An issue of focus for Cook was concerns that some “policymakers are taking steps, in the name of competition, that would force Apple to let apps onto the iPhone that circumvent the App Store through a process called sideloading.” Apple’s App Store has long issued strict requirements on application makers to abide by security protocols to get into the store. 

If sideloading is forced upon Apple by a competition law, Cook warned, “That means data-hungry companies would be able to avoid our privacy rules, and once again track our users against their will.” He added that it would provide bad actors with a means to bypass “comprehensive security protections we’ve put in place.” 

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