Apple may turn off key privacy tool in Europe

"Apple has always pushed hard on the need for user privacy. Apple CEO Tim Cook has spoken about the threat of a surveillance economy and Craig Federighi, Apple's software vice president, gave an extensive speech on the topic at the European Data Protection and Privacy Conference in 2020. "The mass centralization of data puts privacy at risk," he said then, "no matter who's collecting it and what their intentions might be. So ,we believe Apple should have as little data about our customers as possible."

""Now, others take the opposite approach. They gather, sell, and hoard as much of your personal information as they can. The result is a data-industrial complex, where shadowy actors work to infiltrate the most intimate parts of your life and exploit whatever they can find - whether to sell you something, to radicalize your views, or worse. That's unacceptable. And the solution has to start with not collecting the data in the first place.""

Apple pushes strong protections for user privacy and frames a surveillance economy as a major threat. The company warns that mass centralization of data endangers privacy regardless of who controls the information or their intentions. Apple prefers to minimize the data it holds about customers. Many companies adopt an opposite model, gathering, selling, and hoarding personal information for profit. That model has created a data-industrial complex in which shadowy actors infiltrate intimate aspects of life to sell products, radicalize views, or cause greater harm. The proposed solution is to avoid collecting unnecessary personal data in the first place.

Read at Computerworld