Speaking at the Time 100 Summit, Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke out about privacy and his stance against surveillance. Despite his supposed concerns about privacy, Apple continues to produce creepy surveillance capitalism technology ranging from AirTags used in stalking to a new smartwatch design featuring a camera.
9to5Mac reports that during a recent interview at the Time 100 Summit, Apple CEO Tim Cook discussed his beliefs around user privacy. Cook has previously discussed this topic in-depth and said that he believes a loss of privacy results in a loss of freedom.
Speaking on Data Privacy Day in February, Cook said: “If we accept as normal and unavoidable that everything in our lives can be aggregated and sold, we lose so much more than data, we lose the freedom to be human.”
In April he added to this sentiment, stating: “[There are two possible futures.] One where technology unlocks humanity’s full creative potential, and ushers in a new era of possibility. The other where technology is exploited to rob humanity of that which is foundational: our privacy itself. And that is a loss we cannot accept… A world without privacy is less imaginative, less empathetic, less innovative, less human.”
Speaking at the Time 100 Summit, the Apple CEO expanded on his thoughts:
Cook says he worries that people will become “restrained” and begin thinking and behaving differently as they lose their sense of privacy in a world where digital devices and technology become more and more adept at tracking their movements.
“I fear deeply the loss of privacy,” he told TIME executive editor John Simons Tuesday at the TIME100 Summit. “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. In a world like that where we’re restraining ourselves, it changes society in a major way.”
Cook went on to say that it’s difficult to argue that people shouldn’t own their own private data. “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,” he said. “That’s a large concern of mine.”
Despite Cook’s concerns about a loss of privacy, Apple has patented a new smartwatch design that features a camera. The camera could allow users to take pictures of others without their knowledge, seemingly the type of privacy invasion Cook is concerned about.
Other Apple products also have created invasions of privacy. The Apple AirTag tracking device has been used to stalk people, as cases are piling up around the country.
As Breitbart News previously reported:
Vice requested records mentioning AirTags in the past eight-month period from dozens of police departments across the United States. Of the 150 police reports received that mention AirTags, 50 included women calling the police as they were receiving notifications that they were being tracked by a nearby AirTag.
Of those 50 cases, 25 of the women were able to identify an individual in their life who they strongly suspected had planted the AirTags on them in an effort to stalk them. The women reported that current and former romantic partners were using AirTags to stalk and harass them.
In one of the cases, a woman called the police as a man who had been harassing her for some time was escalating his behavior and placed an AirTag in her car. The woman alleged that the man had previously threatened to “make her life hell.” The majority of cases involved angry exes, including one case in which a woman called to report that her ex had slashed her tires and left an AirTag in the car.
Read more at 9to5Mac here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com