Apple launches campaign focused on user privacy with message from CEO Tim Cook
In addition to releasing iOS 8 to the public, Apple has today launched a new campaign focused on its commitment to its customers’ privacy.
The campaign is centered in a new set of pages published by Apple on its official website, first and foremost of which is a message on the matter of privacy from Apple CEO Tim Cook.
“We’re publishing this website to explain how we handle your personal information, what we do and don’t collect, and why,” Cook says. “We’re going to make sure you get updates here about privacy at Apple at least once a year and whenever there are significant changes to our policies.”
He asserts that security and privacy are “fundamental” to the design and development of all of Apple’s products and services, including iCloud and the recently announced Apple Pay.
With its new campaign, Apple hopes to be more transparent than companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook in its handling of user data.
“Our business model is very straightforward: We sell great products,” Cook says. “We don’t build a profile based on your email content or web browsing habits to sell to advertisers. We don’t ‘monetize’ the information you store on your iPhone or in iCloud. And we don’t read your email or your messages to get information to market to you. Our software and services are designed to make our devices better. Plain and simple.”
This is essentially a reiteration of Cook’s response to the question of privacy posed by Charlie Rose in a recent interview:
If you can’t see the video embedded above, please click here.
Cook concludes his message by reaffirming that Apple has never worked with any government agency from any country to spy on its customers. “We have also never allowed access to our servers,” he says. “And we never will.”
Apple’s new privacy-focused campaign comes in the wake of the so-called iCloud hacking incident that led to the leaking of nude photos of a number of celebrities. While it maintains that iCloud was not breached during the incident, Apple has nonetheless initiated new measures to enhance user security and privacy, including two-step verification and app-specific passwords.