Tim Cook defends Apple Watch privacy focus in mental health talk
Tim Cook had to defend Apple's privacy policies during a meeting with Jill Biden and political spouses, after an accusation that Apple Watch users are being actively "watched."
Apple CEO Tim Cook
Apple CEO Tim Cook welcomed the spouses of political leaders to Apple Park on Friday for a discussion on mental health, while world leaders attended a summit on American-Pacific issues. While seemingly a potentially relaxed gathering, the hour-long meeting did lead to a small amount of controversy.
Cook welcomed Jill Biden, South Korean first lady Kim Keon Hee, Papua New Guinea's Rachael Marape, First Lady of the Philippines Louise Araneta-Marcos, Malaysia's Dr. Wan Azizah binti Wan Ismael, and U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. Also in attendance was Blackpink singer Rose.
The talks generally covered mental health and social media, reports The Daily Mail, with topics ranging from the effects of social media on celebrities to the importance of connection and coping tools that the COVID pandemic highlighted.
Towards the end of the meeting, Dr. Wan Azizah binti Wan Ismail decided to ask Cook about AI's effects on mental health issues, and pressed to know what Apple was doing about privacy issues. She taunted "If you've ever had an Apple Watch, you are being watched all the time."
Cook initially responded "Absolutely not actually," and that Apple was a "privacy company." He then went into explaining why this is the case, including how the company believes "privacy is a fundamental human right."
He went on to cover Apple's policies to collect as little information as required, the use of on-device collection and storage, and encryption. "Apple doesn't even see them. We can't see them. And if it is somebody wanted to get that from us, we don't have it. It's data that we never collect," he added.
Ismail went on to propose that mental health could be affected if data is taken from Apple's hardware.
Cook countered that "we see that one of the very key roles that we had is providing people privacy and security. These two things go hand in hand."
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Comments
There are challenges to deal with but those people who don't understand technology should not have a say or make a policy.
What a nut job
Obviously the watch is monitoring all kinds of things locally all the time and it does send stuff back to Apple's servers to sync with your other devices. That doesn't mean that Apple "is watching".
But, when you take into account what people hear about "the cloud" coupled with what they hear about the things Google and Facebook are doing (credible or not), then her ignorance is not that farfetched or unreasonable.
It was a teachable moment and Cook handled it with grace. Wasn't that kind of the point of the meeting in the first place?
Add to that the dozens of pages that Apple uses in their ToS, strewn across different services and locations, and the fact it is all or nothing, and users can be forgiven for throwing their hands up and accepting while hoping for the best. Keep it always in mind: The primary purpose of these agreements is to protect the software developer's intellectual property rights, and allow for limited (??) storage and application of your data collected in the course of using that software. It is not for your benefit.
While smart lawyers can craft a EULA worded in such a way that you are given the impression no personal data is being collected, stored, or shared, it is not a guarantee it doesn't happen. EULA's are multi-page and include broad exceptions for good reason.
The big techs don't outright lie. They just make sure the terms of service are loose enough to give them cover.
Not only the wording but how the terms are presented.
No new changes to previously accepted terms should be presented on first use (after installation). They should be presented prior to download. They should also present the changes to the terms clearly in summary form instead of requiring the users to hunt for changes by re-reading the entire agreement again.